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II. CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY AND WAR CRIMES
SUMMARY
War crimes and crimes against humanity are among the most serious international offences, whose commission entails individual criminal responsibility. International criminal law has its origins in customary law, but gradually over the 20th Century, the norms applicable to war crimes and crimes against humanity also have been codified in various international treaties.
With respect to war crimes and crimes against humanity, the first significant codification can be found in the London Charter of August 8, 1945, in which the parties determined to create the International Military Tribunal for the trial of war criminals. The relevant provisions are found in Article 6 of this Charter:
"(b) WAR CRIMES: namely, violations of the law or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labour or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
(c) CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.
Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed in execution of such a plan." (4)
From these definitions, it is apparent that war crimes and crimes against humanity complement one another to create a regime of humanitarian law which protects the victims of armed combat. Moreover, there has been considerable expansion in the definitions of two of the crimes defined in Article 6. (5) In particular, these definitions, which codified international law in 1945, have been expanded by the decisions of the International Military Tribunals of Nuremberg and Tokyo, by the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and later instruments such as the Statute Establishing the International Criminal Tribunal for Former-Yugoslavia and Rwanda. (6)
In terms of their legal development and normative status, war crimes and crimes against humanity are closely related. With respect to the four Vienna Conventions for the Protection of Victims of War and their Protocols, grave breaches of these Conventions constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity. The Conventions are the "core of customary international law" applicable in armed conflicts. (7)
The Conventions contain common articles which deal with grave breaches that involve acts committed against protected persons or property. "All these grave breaches in effect constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity. The four Geneva Conventions obligate all Contracting Parties to search for persons who commit grave breaches and bring them to trial regardless of their nationality (or alternatively to extradite them). The Conventions impose a duty on--and therefore authorize--neutral States to prosecute the offenders. What this boils down to is establishing universal jurisdiction." (8)
The most relevant provisions of the Conventions are:
- Article 50 of the (First) Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field repeats the prohibition against wilful killing; torture or inhuman treatment; wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to bodyor health; extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.
- Article 130 of the (Third) Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War adds a prohibition against compelling a prisoner-of-war to serve in the forces of a hostile Power; and of wilfully depriving the rights of a prisoner-of-war to a fair and regular trial.
- Article 147 of the (Fourth) Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War adds the unlawful deportation or transfer or the unlawful confinement of a protected person; compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power; willfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial; and taking hostages.
- The First Protocol of the Geneva Conventions Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflict (1978) adds breaches such as medical or scientific experiments on protected persons; making civilians the object of attack; launching an indiscriminate attack affecting the civilian population in the knowledge that such attack will cause excessive loss of life or injury to civilians; transference by an occupying Power of part of its own civilian population into territory it occupies, or deportation of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory; and practices of racial discrimination (9)
Although we have discussed crimes against humanity in conjunction with war crimes as part of international humanitarian law, which governs armed conflicts, it is important to note that crimes against humanity can be committed in times of peace as well; thus, crimes against humanity are also part of general human rights law applicable at all times. (10) Taken separately, the concept of "crimes against humanity" denotes certain grave acts of violence committed on a large scale by individuals, be they agents of the State or others, against civilians on national, political, ideological, racial, ethnic or religious grounds. This element of discrimination and persecution is one of the central feature of that we have seen in the definition in article 6 of the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal. (11)
The definition of crimes against humanity in the Statute of the ICT for Rwanda is inspired by the Statutes of the IMTs at Nuremberg and Tokyo. In Article 3, it sets forth that the tribunal has the power to prosecute, for crimes against humanity, the persons responsible for the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population on national, political, ethnic, racial or religious grounds:
a) murder
b) extermination
c) enslavement
d) deportation
e) imprisonment
f) torture
g) rape
h) persecution on political, racial and religious grounds
i) other inhumane acts
The definition of the Rwandan tribunal has the merit of specifying that crimes against humanity are characterized by their being targeted against a national, political, ethnic, racial or religious group. Unfortunately, this element does not appear in the Statute of the ICT for the Former-Yugoslavia.
In regards to "war crimes," the definition of the crime is focused upon the violation of the laws and customs which govern armed combat. As we have seen, the notion of war crimes which existed in customary international law was codified by the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1945. Shortly afterwards, in 1949, the Geneva Conventions established the framework of customary international law for the regulation of armed conflict and includes wide-reaching protection for combatants and non-combatants in international and internal conflict situations. Some of the important provisions have been listed above.
Moreover, Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions for the Protection of War Victims of August 12, 1949 and Additional Protocol II to these conventions, of June 8, 1977, forms the basis for the Rwandan tribunal's Article 4 which proscribes, "at any time and in any place whatsoever".
a) violence to life, health and physical or mental well-being of
persons, in particular murder, as well as cruel treatment such as
torture, mutilation, or any form of corporal punishment;
b) collective punishment;
c) taking of hostages;
d) acts of terrorism;
e) outrages upon the personal dignity, in particular humiliating and
degrading treatment, rape, enforced prostitution and any form of
indecent assault;
f) pillage;
g) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without
previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court,
affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as
indispensable by civilized people;
h) threats to commit any of the foregoing acts.
The creation of an International Criminal Court, which is anticipated for the summer of 1998, provides the world community with the opportunity to codify the recent developments of international law relative to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Since the Draft Statute of the ICC is still open to negotiation at the present time, it is not yet law. Moreover, given the dynamics of negotiation, it is unclear whether the final definitions of the crimes under the ICC's jurisdiction (aggression, genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity) will be progressive. However, upon examination of Part 2 of the Statute, "Jurisdiction, admissibility and applicable law," it is clear that the most progressive and comprehensive definitions of these crimes have been proposed and should be accepted. (12)
As is evident from the various documents, reports and testimony relayed by both the local and international press, the acts described below were committed in the DRC and constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity under the relevant international legal instruments.
Summary
II.i. Murder on a Large Scale
As we have seen, from Article 3 of the Statute of the ICT for Rwanda and Article 5 of the Statute of the ICT for the Former Yugoslavia, murder is a "crime against humanity when committed against civilian population, as a part of widespread or systematic attack." (13)
Murder, defined by Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, denotes all arbitrary and extra-judicial summary executions. Paragraph 1 of this article provides, in particular, that "[e]very human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life." The definition of murder also includes "all voluntary homicides including homicides perpetrated by the willful creation of the conditions leading to death."
This crime was committed on the territory of the DRC between 1996 and 1997, in a massive, widespread, systematic and large-scale manner. It was committed by all parties to the conflict against the civilian population, and in particular against civilians of Rwandese Hutu origin, as evidenced by many sources. According to the following Amnesty International report, "Appeal for the Protection of Human Rights and the Crisis of Eastern Zaire," combatants from both the FAZ and the ADFL were guilty of this crime:
"In early September 1996 fighting broke out in South-Kivu region between the FAZ and a Tutsi-led armed group linked to the Banyamulenge. On 31 October after fighting between the FAZ and this Tutsi-led force, now known as, the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaïre (ADFL), the latter took control of Bukavu, the capital of South-Kivu. Some 83 bodies were counted by Western journalists, including that of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bukavu, Christophe Munzihirwa, who had publicly criticized the ADFL and its alleged support by the Rwandese Patriotic Army (RPA). Several of those killed appeared to be victims of execution, but it was unclear who had carried them out. After the ADFL captured Goma, the capital of North-Kivu, about 300 bodies were found. The circumstances of their death remain unclear, although many reportedly died from gunshot and shrapnel wounds." (14)
Primary target of the massacres: Rwandese and Burundian Hutu refugees
In its memorandum to the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Amnesty International persistently confirmed the existence of massacres:
"Amnesty International received numerous accounts and considerable information to the effect that ADFL combatants had committed arbitrary murders in eastern DRC starting in September 1996. Most of the victims were Hutus. They were reportedly killed by gun shots or bayonet wounds, or beaten to death. Tens of thousands of refugees were forced to flee into the forest where many died of illness, hunger or exhaustion. A large number of former FAZ members and unarmed civilians were allegedly summarily executed at Kinshasa by ADFL combatants on May 17, 1997 or in the days that followed. On May 26, 1997, 100 unarmed civilians were reported executed by the ADFL at Uvira." (15)
Similar facts were reported by other NGOs, both national and international, e.g. that of Human Rights Watch and FIDH, (16)which describes how Hutu refugees were massacred by the ADFL and RPA elements. This report signals (p.18), that "strong testimonies (...) which mention rape, massacres, destructions, and pillaging perpetrated by the FAZ...", and that "abuses committed (...) By the ex-FAR and other armed exiles, presumed to be members of the Interahamwe militia, were largely related to foraging and pillaging to sustain themselves. These consisted primarily of theft, destruction, and violations of physical integrity, as well as some killings.." (p. 18), and mainly that (p. 19)
"Violations committed by the ADFL in the area near villages consist essentially in widespread of civilian refugees. Refugee Men, women and children who were too weak or sick to flee were killed by the first ADFL units coming in contact with them . The Killings in the villages and on the road were carried out over a three-day period as the ADFL troops advanced and overtook refugees. No combat took place in the area as the last of the ex-FAR, Interahamwe and FAZ left several days before the arrival of ADFL ." (17)
The executions perpetrated by the ADFL in this case took place over three days along the length of a road that joins three villages through the heart of the Congolese forest. The following are the eloquent accounts of villagers and employees of humanitarian organizations in the region through which the refugees passed, who were direct witnesses to these massacres:
"There were a mix of men and women. There was one child about three years old. We buried twelve of them here in this grave and put one in with the other grave with two people who died from sickness. There are two more people in that third grave over there. Seventeen people in all were reportedly buried, fifteen killed by the ADFL, two from disease. ...
The ADFL killed them in front of me with knives and machetes. I saw around fifteen cadavers, but I was trying not to look. The villagers were already burying refugees in groups of four or six in common graves. There were many, many killed; more than fifty." (18)
"... Residents of the second village reportedly witnessed the killings by the ADFL and later disposed of fourteen of the bodies in a defunct well, ten adults and four children, all unarmed civilians...
At the bridge past the second village, the remains of several campfires were still visible, with bones and skulls scattered in the brush nearby. As many as an additional fifty refugees had been killed at this site; bodies had been thrown into the river. In addition to those refugees killed by the ADFL, Humanitarian agents from the first village stated that they had buried at least fifteen other refugees who had died due to disease, dehydration or exhaustion between the first and second villages." (19)
"Witnesses from the area estimate that hundreds of refugees had been killed between the second and third villages alone, but that some cleanup had already taken place. A medical doctor with extensive experience in the area estimated that up to 1,700 people may have been killed between the second and third villages. Residents of the area were particularly reluctant to accompany Human Rights Watch /FIDH along this segment of road due to a fear of reprisal by the ADFL.
All bodies or bones photographed were in the road or within a few metres of the road, some in groups of up to eight, often near or in the remains of campfires. Many of the skulls contained holes or were fractured, suggesting blows with a heavy object. All bodies were in approximately the same state of very advanced decomposition or were skeletons. Many of the remains were clearly identifiable as women or children." (20)
"Five kilometres from the second bridge is the third village, where UNHCR estimates that between 22,000 and 30,000 refugees had passed through a temporary camp. Numerous testimonies from Congolese, International Humanitarian workers, and refugees in Congo-Brazzaville spoke of mass killings by the ADFL of refugees at the third village. A witness who had accompanied the ADFL to the third village state that he saw several hundred cadavers in and around the camp upon his arrival.: " On the road approaching (the third village), there where many more at the camp , several hundred. They were killed with knives and machetes, but right in the camp they had been shot, too.". (21)
"Human Rights Watch visited the former refugee camp site at the third village which spread over some 800 metres of road and into the forest. The camp was littered with clothing, shoes, equipment and many bullet shells . No evidence of bodies or mass graves was present . According to villagers and relief workers, the site had been cleaned by the ADFL and the bodies of refugees, numbering in the hundreds, were dumped in a nearby river." (22)
The Palermo-Bukavu Solidarity Committee reported the same massacres but ascribed them to the ADFL forces alone. This report notes the atrocity in which the ADFL surrounded the Cimanga camp between October 31 and November 2, 1996 and killed many refugees with machine-gunfire. The number of victims was estimated at over 500. The same report reveals that:
- about 50 refugees fleeing the bombardment of Kashusha found refuge in the Kajeje school on November 4, 1996. Two days later they were all killed by ADFL combatants on duty in the Kabare area.
- On November 20, 1996, nearly 800 women, children, medical patients and senior citizens were reported killed at Cibumba on Magobe Hill and buried under the supervision of a Tutsi named Kamari.
- On November 21, 1996, several other refugees were killed at Lumbishi. The following is an excerpt from this report:
"Primary target of the massacres: Rwandese and Burundian Hutu refugees
The survivors and the killers are in the best position to speak of this unprecedented drama in the history of refugees. Nevertheless, looking back on what occurred with the refugees, from Uvira in September 1996 to Ubundu in April 1997, one can scarcely avoid the conclusion that this drama was the result of a carefully conceived plan, with firearms and hunger being the deadly instruments used to accomplish it. At all events, the refusal of the international community to do something concrete to stop the killing is not likely to dispel this perception.
The refugee camps were made into military targets. From the moment the Tutsis touched off the war, in Rutshuru and Nyiragongo to the north and on the Ruzizi River plain in the south, they aimed their violence at the refugees in the camps. Using bombs, rocket launchers and small arms, they destroyed camp after camp during the months of September, October and November 1996. It is obvious that many refugees were killed, and that the mass graves discovered near the sites of several camps in South and North Kivu are not an invention.
As an example, while staying at the settlement of Kajeje from Friday, October 31 to Sunday, November 2, 1996, we could hear bombs launched day and night at the INERA and Kashusha camps. When the bombing ceased, the two camps were empty. A Red Cross representative who I contacted two weeks later indicated that about one hundred bodies had been buried there. During the same period, the Cimanga camp was surrounded and many refugees were machine-gunned to death. Some sources place the number of these victims at between 300 and 500, while others estimate over 1000. These victims were buried at the site in mass graves. Visits to the site were prohibited. It was against this backdrop that Abbé Jean Claude, a Diocesan pastor passing through the area, was killed. About fifty refugees fleeing the bombardment of Kashusha took refuge in the Kajeje school on November 4, 1996. Two days later, they were all killed by men from the ADFL who were already combing the Kabare area. Following this act, many Bashi families became more and more reluctant to take in and accommodate anyone foreign to the zone. This was one reason why the people displaced from Bukavu who had found refuge in the Kabare area were forced to return home.
Those of the refugees who survived the destruction of the camps were forced to flee. Some took the road to Rwanda and Burundi. Others (the large majority) headed into the hinterland, far from the border. These latter were hunted down like game over the last six months in the Zairian forest.
On this long march, the South Kivu refugees took three different directions
- The southward direction leading to Shabunda, and from there to Kalima and Kindu. It will be recalled that when Shabunda was taken in January 1997, several men and boys had been separated from the women and children before taking up arms.
- The central direction was the Miti-Bunyakiri road and the Kahuzi forest to either side of it.
- The northward direction was the Kalehe-Nyabibwe-Minova road. Caught between two groups of Tutsi combatants, those advancing from Bukavu behind and those arriving from Goma ahead, these refugees climbed into the mountains, where many of them were killed by bombs and machine-gunfire.
- November 20, 1996: nearly 800 women, children, medical patients and elderly men were reported killed at Cibumba on the Magobe Hill and buried under the supervision of a Tutsi named Kamari.
- November 21, 1996: over 350 people were reported killed at Shanje in the Rukiga forest.
- November 22, 1996: several other refugees were killed at Lumbishi.
The survivors moved deeper into the interior, where they encountered the wave that had taken the central direction near Walikale. Large-scale massacres took place at Nombo and Itebero in December 1996 and January 1997. The survivors continued on to Tingi Tingi. The number of dead in this sector is estimated at over 15,000.
Further north, the refugees fleeing the bombardment of Mugunga headed toward Masisi. At Sake and on the hills surrounding this town as well as at Kichanga, Mayi Mayi combatants reportedly killed hundreds of refugee families.
According to the testimony of Zairians who participated in the repatriation of refugees under HCR auspices in South Kivu, men were sometimes separated from women and children at roadblocks manned by ADFL soldiers and taken to an unknown destination." (23)
Amnesty International, in its report "Deadly Alliances in Congolese Forests" published in December 1997, forcefully details similar facts to those reported above:
"By March 1997, the ADFL had captured much of eastern (ex-) Zaire from former President Mobutu's retreating FAZ and several hundred mercenaries. Armed clashes were also reported between the ADFL and the ex-FAR and Interahamwe militia. The presence of armed elements among or close to unarmed Hutu refugees was usually given as justification for attacking the refugees. However, a pattern of wanton killing of Hutu, initially males of fighting age, was established as early as December 1996. By March, Amnesty International was receiving reports of ADFL killing Hutu of all ages and sexes, particularly when fighting reached the Congolese Hutu-dominated Masisi and Rutshuru districts (zones) of North-Kivu (Nord-Kivu) province. Violence in the province was reported to be continuing in October 1997.
Killings of refugees which began in October 1996 in the camps along the DRC border with Rwanda and Burundi continued as the ADFL and its allies captured more territory, through to the DRC's western border with the Republic of Congo. The refugees who had managed to escape westwards from the camps walked hundreds of kilometres and frequently set up make-shift camps. Humanitarian agencies distributed food and medical supplies, as and when they could, to these camps. Settlement in camps subsequently enabled the ADFL and its allies to locate the refugees and on occasion kill hundreds of them at a time. The ADFL allowed humanitarian agencies to locate and attack refugees out of their hiding and then blocked the agencies' access to the camps. In many cases the agencies appealed to local ADFL leaders to be allowed immediate access to the refugees but to no avail. Distressed representatives of some of the agencies have told Amnesty International that it is during the period when camps were blocked off that most of the massacres occurred. Many of the humanitarian workers who had worked in armed conflicts in other parts of the world said they had never witnessed comparable use of humanitarian organizations to facilitate human rights abuses.
Hunting down refugees in Kivu
Hundreds and possibly thousands of Hutu refugees are reported to have been deliberately and arbitrarily killed along the Bukavu-Shabunda axis in South-Kivu (Sud-Kivu) province, particularly during February and March 1997. Large numbers of skeletons were reported on the Kingulube-Shabunda road. Sources in the area reported in April that what was left to indicate that people were killed in several places on the axis were bits of their belongings and mass graves. For example, credible sources have informed Amnesty International that scores of refugees were killed at Mpwe, about 12 kilometres west of Shabunda. Victims of the massacre were reportedly buried in a mass grave behind a house at Mpwe. The mass grave was reportedly concealed to appear like a site being prepared for house construction. At the end of March, the only visible evidence that people once lived at the site were clothing and ustensils strewn by the roadside.
Another mass grave containing bodies of Hutu refugees has been reported to the north of Katchungu, on the road to Lulingu. There were reports at the end of March that scores of refugees were being killed in the area. Twelve more mass graves were identified by sources in Kivu at Langue-Langue, about 130 kilometres west of Kingulube. The graves were reportedly marked with crosses. Sources in the area have said it is not usual for graves to be located in the village and that they are normally built in soil mounds covered with stones. In this case, the graves were flat in an effort by the ADFL to conceal them. Humanitarian workers visiting a nearby area on 28 March 1997 saw two fresh mass graves marked by bright soil. When they came back a day later, the graves had been covered by darker soil.
Further massacres were reported at Tingi-Tingi camp where he saw about 20 refugee camp between 1 and 3 March 1997. One survivor said most of the refugees left the camp on 28 February and the ADFL occupied it on 1 March. Some of the first victims there were reportedly sick people who could not walk any further. One refugee told Amnesty International that from a hiding place in the bush he saw ADFL combatants, some of them speaking Kinyarwanda, force about 20 people back into the camp and kill them, mostly using bayonets but also guns. The victims were said to have included 28-year-old Jacques Hakizimana from Kigali, his wife, Rose and 26-year-old André Habimana from Kibuye, in Rwanda. The witness claimed that the bodies were burned and covered with earth on the upper side of the market on the road to Lubutu.
RPA soldiers have been implicated in a number of killings of individuals or groups of people. A name of one RPA commander has been mentioned by various sources. For example, on 31 March, this commander and soldiers in his unit reportedly killed two workers of Katchungu Roman Catholic church and an unspecified number of Hutu refugees staying at the church. Following the killings, the commander reportedly ordered missionaries at the church not to offer any further assistance to the refugees. The commander reportedly demanded that the remaining refugees be sent down the road to Kingulube where humanitarian workers feared they would be tracked down and killed by the soldiers. On the same day, two Congolese civilians were killed by the soldiers.
On 28 March villagers led by an RPA commander were seen by witnesses some 145 kilometres on the Kingulube to Shabunda road removing decomposed bodies and refugees' belongings from what was believed to be a massacre site. Some mass graves that had just been covered were sent near Shabunda. Abandoned clothing was also observed at Ulindi river. Earlier, on 25 March three refugees were reportedly killed by the ADFL in Kingulube. In another incident on a bridge over Ulindi river, ADFL troops reportedly used knives to kill five refugees on 27 March.
As many as 500 Rwandese Hutu refugees camped at Kirumbu, near Mukoto monastery, in Masisi district, were reportedly killed by the ADFL in late April and early May 1997. A helicopter, apparently coming from Rwanda, was reportedly used to ferry supplies to the soldiers.
On May 20th, four Rwandese refugees, including a child, and a Congolese Save the Children Fund (SCF) worker were shot dead when members of the ADFL at Karuba, 45 kilometres west of Goma, opened fire on them. Karuba was a major collection point for Rwandese refugees seeking to return to Rwanda. The SCF worker, Katumbo Mburanumwe, who was leading a group of refugees, was carrying the child who was killed on his back. Ten other children and several adult refugees reportedly survived the attack. The UNHCR suspended its activities in the camp and called for an investigation into the killings. In a statement released on 2 June, SCF urged the DRC Government "to carry out a full and impartial investigation of this incident." The organization called on the government "to ensure that those responsible for these killings are brought to justice." The authorities are not known to have ordered any investigation into the incident.
Although most of the refugees reported to have been killed by the ADFL are generally described as Rwandese Hutu, they are also believed to have included Burundians. In mid-June, Amnesty International learned of a massacre in which virtually all the victims were reported to be Burundians. In this incident which occurred at the start of June, members of the ADFL between Bukavu and Shabunda reportedly used bayonets to kill about 40 Burundian former students of Bukavu University. The victims were reportedly buried by local Congolese civilians. The students had reportedly fled from Bukavu in October 1996 and had since then been living in Shabunda.
In late June about 60 Rwandese refugees, including children, were reportedly massacred by ADFL soldiers in an abandoned house at Kavumu in Kivu. The victims were reportedly on their way to Rwanda. A Rwandese Hutu known as Ernest, a student at the Catholic University of Bukavu was reportedly killed by soldiers in Bukavu. He was reportedly woken up at 3 am in Buolo III district of Bukavu and taken away naked by ADFL soldiers who ordered his family to prepare to return to Rwanda. Congolese nationals reportedly informed the UNHCR about the kidnap. His decapitated bodywas later found.
Massacre in Mbandaka
One of the massacres of refugees by the ADFL which has been described in detail by sources in western DRC took place on 13 May 1997 at Mbandaka, the capital of the northwestern DRC Equateur province, on the bank of the Congo river which separates the DRC from the Republic of Congo. The massacre is reported to have begun at Wendji, about 20 kilometres from Mbandaka. "In effect, the aggressors attacked this time in a U-formation and pushed towards Mbandaka. I saw Dathive behind me succumb to automatic fire from guns mounted on the bodyof the damned truck. My lips trembled and a stream of tears flowed instinctively. I saw an inert female bodyand a child who cried on its side fingering its breasts! I saw the inanimate bodyof Marie-Rose, wife of Minani, a former butcher. What carnage! I saw before me bodies falling like banana trees cut down by a sharp machete."
This is a description by a Rwandese refugee of the scene of the massacre of Rwandese refugees by the ADFL at Wendji. The refugee and several dozen others at Loukolela camp in the Republic of Congo were interviewed at the start of June 1997 by Amnesty International. Most of the victims were reportedly killed around a building belonging to the Office national des transports (ONATRO), National Transport Office, while dozens more were killed on the road to Mbandaka airport. The local Red Cross organization reportedly buried 116 bodies on 13 May, 17 on 14 May and 17 in subsequent days. Some of those killed were reportedly ordered to kneel or lie on the ground before they were shot or bayoneted to death. As many as 280 refugees waiting at Mbandaka port to be transported down the River Congo were reportedly sprayed with bullets, some of them falling dead or wounded and others fleeing into the river. Witnesses said as many as 140 refugees were killed by the ADFL at Wendji. One Congolese witness claimed to have counted 295 bodies lying along the road between Wendji and Mbandaka. Some sources have claimed that as many as 800 refugees may have been killed in and around Mbandaka.
According to the Washington Post newspaper of 11 June 1997, the killings in Mbandaka were ordered by two colonels of the RPA. Despite his seniority, a Congolese ADFL general was reportedly powerless to prevent the killings. Whereas the ADFL argued that some of those killed in other incidents were armed, local people in Mbandaka reported that some of the refugees who had arrived in Mbandaka with arms had been disarmed by the governor of the former government. One source was quoted as saying that members of the ADFL told aid workers in Mbandaka that they were safe as it was the refugees they were looking for.
All the witnesses were unanimous that the attackers spoke Kinyarwanda. They told Amnesty International that apart from youths, the local population largely refused to participate in the killing of refugees when asked to do so by ADFL combatants. On the contrary, many local people took personal risks and hide many of the survivors, assisted them with canoes to cross the river or showed them escape routes to Congo. Hundreds of refugees were reportedly saved by local people who advised them to wear white bands around their heads to appear as local ADFL supporters. Other local Congolese gave food to the refugees, despite reports that the refugees had been using violence to obtain food from Congolese villagers.
One survivor at Loukolela refugee camp told Amnesty International that as many as 2,500 refugees had boarded a boat to cross to Congo when ADFL combatants opened fire on them. Those still waiting to board were also shot. "Many were hit [by bullets] and died. Others threw themselves into the water to escape bullets and drowned. One of the victims I remember was called Celestin Munyaneza, who was 8 years old," he said.
Another survivor said that people in civilian clothes speaking Kinyarwanda called the refugees out of the forest around Mbandaka to receive humanitarian supplies. Some of the refugees responded to the call and were attacked by civilians wearing red arm bands, whom the refugees reportedly mistook for Red Cross workers. One woman told Amnesty International that among those killed were her husband, Jean Buregeya, and her five children, including 4-year-old Léandre Nisingizwe.
On 22 May, the DRC Minister of the Interior reportedly denied any killings by the ADFL in Mbandaka. The following day, priests in Mbandaka reportedly protested to the ADFL governor of Mbandaka about the government's denial of the killings.
Killings of refugees in Mbandaka are reported to have continued for several days after 13 May. For example, a group of 30 refugees who had been encouraged by humanitarian workers to come out of their hiding in the forest around Wendji was reportedly massacred by ADFL soldiers travelling on a truck. Sources in Mbandaka have reported that after 13 May, in order not to frighten the local population, the ADFL killed with clubs.
Bodies were disposed of by burying them in mass graves; others were thrown in the river. The Red Cross organization is reported to have buried other bodies in a cemetery belonging to the Bolange Protestant Mission in Mbandaka.
Killings were also reported in other parts of Equateur, as they were elsewhere in the DRC. For example, as many as 2,000 refugees are reported to have been massacred by the ADFL in and around Boende. The killings in Boende were reportedly preceded by fighting between armed ex-FAR and ADFL. Massacres of unarmed civilians took place after the ex-FAR had fled. Bodies of some of the victims killed near the port were reportedly thrown into the Tsuapa river. Further killings of men and women refugees reportedly took place on the Samba to Boende road, where the victims' children were reportedly given to local Congolese families to look after them. Mass graves containing six to 15 bodies were reported along the road. Killings in and around Boende reportedly continued into July 1997, particularly near a bridge situated five kilometres outside Boende town. For example, in early July ADFL soldiers reportedly shot dead three Rwandese refugees, including a Roman Catholic priest, five kilometres outside Boende. The ADFL reportedly prevented burial of the bodies for two days. The three refugees were on their way to Kisangani to seek evacuation to Rwanda." (24)
Second Target of the Massacres: Specific Ethnic Groups Among the Indigenous Population
According to the authors of the report published by Le Comité de solidarité Palerme Bukavu untitled: "Human rights violations in the territories occupied by ADFL" the second target of the massacres are Zairian citizens made of Fulero, Vira, Bembe and Hutu ethnic groups.:
"Second Target of the Massacres: Specific Ethnic Groups Among the Indigenous Population
The Fulero, Vira and Bembe live, with the Tutsi known as Banyamulenge, in the Uvira and Fizi areas. These last occupy the highlands, whereas the others are concentrated in the lowlands on the shore of Lake Tanganyika and the Zaire-Burundi-Rwanda border. The Banyamulenge, who arrived in the region after the three other groups, tended not to mix with them, and their integration remained a major problem. Thus, their relations with the other groups were strained. Although they have been represented at times in the Parliament in Kinshasa and in the Regional Assembly at Bukavu, the Banyamulenge have had their Zairian citizenship disputed. This thickened the atmosphere of distrust and created enduring tensions between them and their neighbours. The animosity intensified in the wake of the National Sovereign Conference in late 1992, where the country's general policy was to exclude all Kinyarwanda speakers from power. (25)The schism was so wide that the Banyamulenge formed a bloc around their bishop, Mgr. Jérome Gapangwa. Their rivals, for their part, found defenders among the politicians, in the event the influential Anzuluni Bembe, Vice-President of the HCR-PT, and the fiery Shweka Mutabazi, zone commissioner of Uvira. The participation of the Banyamulenge in the RPF war and the departure of many of them for Rwanda after the RPF took power in Kigali did not make matters easier. This was the prevailing situation on the eve of the war in far southern South Kivu.
It will be recalled that when the Banyamulenge returned from Rwanda with weapons, they claimed to have come to reclaim their ancestors' lands and to protect their relatives. That is how the Fulero, Vira and Bembe came to be targets of this armed offensive. Many of the dead and people who went into exile or were forced to live in hiding were from these groups. In general, the massacres in the Uvira area took place during the first two months.
September 1996
There were reports of the destruction of two villages near Kiliba, the murder of Anzuluni's mother-in-law, two diocesan clergymen (all non-Banyamulenge clergy fled the country, leaving the diocese of Uvira without a pastor), several patients at the Lemera hospital, and an assistant zone commissioner residing in Bijombo and his family.
October 1996
Bulangadire Ruhigita Majagira, former rector of the Université évangelique en Afrique (UEA), narrowly survived a bullet fired at his vehicle. He escaped with a broken arm.
Between November 1996 and February 1997, the Fizi area, particularly the Kalundu-Mboko-Baraka road, remained the epicentre of the massacres. Bembe who refused to submit to the ADFL were frequently hit with reprisals.
As to the Hutu, their main population centres are in the areas of Rutshuru, Nyiragongo (including the city of Goma), Masisi, and Walikale in North Kivu, and the settlements of Mbinga-Nord and Ziralo in the Kalehe area of South Kivu. There, they make up an overwhelming majority. Relations with the other minority groups (Hunde, Nyanga, Tembo, and Tutsi) had been strained by the war these latter had imposed on them starting in March 1993. The arrival of Hutu refugees from Rwanda in July 1994, and above all, the campaign implying that there was a plan to create a Hutu homeland in this region, exacerbated the anti-Hutu sentiment. The Tutsi-Mayi Mayi (Hunde, Nyanga, Tembo, Nande) coalition, whose formation dates back to before September 1996, was to be fatal for the Hutus. They are the ones who, from September 1996 to the present, have paid the price of this so-called "liberation." They have been the target of ethnic cleansing in an administration that has fallen under Tutsi hegemony. The goal of this operation has been a significant reduction in the number of Hutus and the destruction of their economic and intellectual elites. The kidnapping and military raids launched against their villages (Bunagana, Jomba, Rugarama, Shinda, and Bambu in Rutshuru; Mushaki, Kagusa, Matanda, Miandja, Rubaya, Kibabi, Kinigi, Karuba, Kabingo, Ngungu, Kichanga, Nyakariba and Muheto in Masisi; Bitonga, Karoba and Numbi in Kalehe) have already caused thousands of deaths, just to mention a few." (26)
Third Target of the massacres: other Zairian civilian populations
The ADFL troops and their allies are not the only ones guilty of this crime of violence against life and person. The FAZ, the FAR, and other armed militias have also claimed victims among the civilian populations in the context of short-term "alliances". Once again, we reproduce Amnesty International's report on this topic:
"In addition to acts of violence since late 1994 to prevent refugees from returning to Rwanda, armed former members of the ex-FAR and Interahamwe militia reportedly killed many refugees who tried to break away from the main groups moving westwards from October 1996. Furthermore, the armed groups reportedly killed some refugees who refused to hand over their food to them or carry their personal belongings, including looted property.
As they fled from eastern DRC, members of the ex-FAR reportedly killed refugees who refused to carry their weapons and other supplies or looted property. For example, a refugee claimed that on 1 March 1997 an ex-FAR major at Lubutu killed four refugee boys who refused to carry bullet cases. Another major reportedly ordered the killing on 2 April of eight refugees near Kisangani after the refugees refused to follow him. On 17 June an ex-FAR captain reportedly ordered the killing with bayonets of four women who refused to cross the Congo river to the Republic of Congo without their husbands who they believed were lost. One of the women reportedly had a child who was thrown into the river along with the women's bodies.
Congolese civilians in villages crossed by the refugees were also often killed by ex-FAR and Interahamwe armed gangs. For example, in March and April 1997 members of the ex-FAR reportedly killed as many as 50 civilians between Boende and Ikela. The victims included the parents of Protestant pastor Bonanga who were killed at Maindombe in early April. ex-FAR also reportedly killed about 10 people at Ene. Ex-FAR soldiers reportedly killed four people at Maindombe on the Congo River as the soldiers looted cows belonging to the victims and a nearby Roman Catholic parish.
Armed groups, including the ex-FAR, ex-FAR and Mayi-Mayi, are reported to have attacked and killed members of the Tutsi ethnic group who had returned in early 1997 to North-Kivu from Rwanda. Attacks on Tutsi civilians reportedly increased in mid-1997 after Tutsi were appointed to replace local government officials from rival ethnic groups in Kivu. Fearing further attacks when members of the RPA withdrew from much of North-Kivu, about 7,000 Tutsi fled to Rwanda in August and September 1997."
Killings, rape and other abuses by the FAZ and its allies
FAZ soldiers perpetrated atrocities in former eastern Zaire, more recently since 1993 when intercommunal violence broke out in North-Kivu. By September 1996 these atrocities had extended to South-Kivu as repression against members of the Tutsi ethnic group reached its peak.
By March 1997 most members of the FAZ were on the run, killing, raping and pillaging as they fled from advancing ADFL and allied forces. Some of the atrocities were reportedly committed by mercenaries hired by former President Mobutu's government. Whereas prominent local people were reportedly able sometimes to convince FAZ commanders and government officials to prevent or limit the worst excesses by the FAZ, this was not the case with the mercenaries. One mercenary reported to have been responsible for numerous killings was a Serb colonel who reportedly claimed that he was only answerable to former President Mobutu. He reportedly personally carried out some of the killings of civilians accused of supporting the ADFL. For example, on 2 March the colonel reportedly shot two diamond diggers at Tshopo bridge, outside Kisangani, and threw their bodies into the river. Fourteen others were reportedly detained in a cell at Bangboka airport. A trader known as Uzele who was reportedly held at the airport cell claimed that he found about 200 civilians there, only about 80 of whom are thought to have survived. The victims reportedly included Kangantumbu Kahindo, Maboke and Paluku Mukaba. It was reported that the Serb colonel was personally in charge of the daily selection of detainees who were removed from the cell at night to go to "work." Those removed never returned and are reported to have been taken to a nearby forest where they were reportedly made to dig their own graves before they were killed. The colonel reportedly said that the list of those to be killed for collaboration with the ADFL was given to him by local government officials.
On March 4th, the colonel reportedly killed two preachers of the Neo-Apostolic church, Paluku and Kasereka, at kilometre 36 on the Kisangani-Ituri road. The victims were returning from a preaching mission. On 6 March, soldiers commanded by the colonel reportedly killed a man known as Kahindo soon after he was arrested for providing accommodation to a Burundian national who had fled from Goma. The two men and a student, Bruno Kambale, were detained at the airport from where Kahindo was executed. The two others survived when the colonel and his men fled from the advancing ADFL forces. On 9 March four people, Ngereza Kasereka, Amundala Maisuku and Awazi Maisuku and Costa, were reportedly killed by the colonel and his men at kilometre 40 on the Kisangani-Ituri road.
Members of the FAZ killed or ill-treated many civilians who failed to hand over property to the troops. Among those severely beaten in March and April 1997 by marauding members of the FAZ in Equateur province were Dr Ilunga of Ikela, one Charbon at Yalu-Saka, Father Ifange at Bokuma and Father Kagoma at Boende. In May a villager in the diocese of Bokungu was burned with a hot knife to force him to reveal the whereabouts of the diocese's bishop.
Members of the FAZ are reported to have carried out killings of members of the ex-FAR and unarmed Rwandese refugees. For example, an unspecified number of ex-FAR and about 50 unarmed refugees were reportedly massacred in early April 1997 by FAZ soldiers at Ikela airfield and at Lonkeju in Equateur province. In the same period, FAZ soldiers and local civilians reportedly killed as many as 100 unarmed Hutu refugees at Mokoso." (27)
Although occasional clashes between armed forces did in fact occur, often these forces attacked civilians, torturing and killing them for political reasons, in reprisal operations that translated into destruction of entire villages, or merely for the sake of killing. In numerous cases, then, as reported by AZADHO, these crimes were deliberate and systematic acts by one group of people against another well-known, well-identified group. Relevant passages from these reports follow:
"On the occasion of a May 7 sweep operation in the villages of Binza, Nyamituitui, Kigaligali, Kitoboko, and Busesa (Rutshuru), the soldiers met with resistance from elements of the ex-FAR, resulting in two dead and several wounded in the ADFL ranks. During a reprisal operation the next day in the same villages, the soldiers massacred 250 peasants, including women and children. Several days earlier, on April 12, a group of ADFL soldiers sent to the locality of Muja, Nyiragongo, had massacred dozens of peasants after forcing them to assemble on the village square. The ADFL authorities had learned that the Muja villagers were engaged in barter with the refugees, including armed elements hiding in the forest. The April 12 operation was therefore a punitive expedition. A survivor who had been left for dead was able to identify 36 victims, whose names he gave to AZADHO/Goma, stating that he estimated the final death toll to be much higher. The details of the massacre and the names of the victims were relayed by AZADHO/Goma to the provincial authorities who never identified the perpetrators of the crime, nor announced any semblance of an investigation.
b) "Operation Mbata" Redoubled: the Anti-Mayi Mayi Actions
It was in the operations against the Mayi Mayi in Masisi that the soldiers' violence seems to have reached its height of inhumanity -- exceeding the savagery of "Operation Mbata" carried out against the same populations by Mobutu's FAZ in 1996. The tension between the Tutsi communities (soldiers and civilian population) and the others was so high that it is impossible to identify with certainty the facts that directly led to the clashes. On July 9, for example, according to the joint report of the Goma organizations, the home of a primary school principal named Mukama was attacked around 8:00 p.m. at Ruzirantaka (Masisi) by Tutsi soldiers, who stole property. Then, again according to the report, the same soldiers fought over the loot and one was killed by the others. "Since they were unable to justify their brother's death, they opened fire on the villagers, killing 16 people," including Basenda Biruru, his wife and nine other members of his family; Katuku, Mrs. Nyankobwa (age 60) and Matoroshi (age 60). According to the report, a "people's self-defence group" consisting of members of "other tribes" immediately reacted by killing at least 17 soldiers and several Tutsi civilians in the locality of Ngungu. In reprisal, the army reportedly organized punitive raids in the localities of Ngungu, Ufamandu, Katovu, Musongati, Kabingo, Rubaya, Kanyenzuki, and Katahandwa, burning homes and massacring dozens of people including elderly people such as Fatma Kimaranza, 70, killed at Ngungu, and eight senior citizens killed at Rubaya. They also killed children, such as a girl named Ngabo Y'lmanzi, burned in the Musongati fire.
On August 31, in broad daylight (around noon, according to one witness), a commando of Tutsi soldiers attacked the village of Buzirambavu, massacring the entire population. While fleeing with her six-month-old baby, Mrs. Mawazo was chased by the attackers, who fired from behind, killing her baby. Mrs Mawazo nevertheless managed to lose the soldiers in the vegetation, abandoning the bodyof her infant. After the night of August 31-September 1 spent in the hiding, Mrs. Mawazo managed to reach Goma, where she was treated for her wounds at the general hospital. Her husband, whose first name is Boniface, was not in the village at the time of the attack but returned two days later. According to his testimony, it appears probable that he and his wife were the only two survivors of the massacre.
Larger scale operations were reported as of July 29 when all along the Ngungu-Nyabiondo road through Masisi centre, villagers were massacred, their homes burned, their crops destroyed. The same methods were used at every locality attacked: village surrounded in the early hours of the morning, homes burned and villagers sprayed with gunfire while attempting to flee. A local organization described the method in these terms: "During the operations, the soldiers separated into 3 groups: the first to kill the people, the second to burn the Bitara (type of granary in which the peasants store their harvest), and the third to loot and carry off the property of the population left behind in the Bitara."
Setting out from Katare, the soldiers attacked Masisi early in the morning of July 29 from the heights of Kahongole, Kibuye, Matyatso and Tete. The weapons ranged from mortars to rocket launchers. Several people managed to flee, while others remained in their homes and were burned. Several Mayi Mayi combatants tried in vain to put up resistance before all being massacred. Around 3:00 p.m. the soldiers entered the town, where they burned down all the buildings, including the schools and the Catholic church. At the hospital, they killed all the patients who had been unable to flee. They also set fire to the leper village, killing its inhabitants. The next morning, around 4:00 a.m., the villages of Kamii and Buabo were attacked with rockets. Those who did not die by fire in their homes were killed by the soldiers waiting in ambush in the banana plantations surrounding the villages. The same horror was reported in the villages of Kishonja, Bushishu, Mafuo (burned July 29), Kyafulo, Kahocho (July 30), Kibirangiro (August 1), Kanja, Nyabiondo, Katu, Bukombo, Loashi (August 6-7). At Nyabiondo, all the public buildings, including the Kishonja primary school, the village hall and the Pentecostal church were burned along with the homes. The town hospital was not spared: its maternity wing, dispensary and inpatient unit were completely destroyed by the soldiers, who massacred the patients. After the "clean-up," the victims' bodies were piled into mass graves or thrown into the Loashi river. According to the volunteers who picked up the bodies, the soldiers left behind pamphlets announcing their imminent return to Nyabiondo to finish off the massacres. On August 25, Masisi was attacked again, its general hospital was looted, and the patients were massacred and thrown into the latrines.
In early September, the massacres spread to the territory of Nyiragongo, with early testimony of mortars installed on the heights of Mugara and Mujoga, then the September 1 massacre of at least 9 peasants at Bujongo, which provoked the flight of the villagers from the localities of Vubiro, Kanyaruchinya and Bujongo.
The preliminary death toll from these operations, as established by local organizations, is particularly heavy. One local human rights organization, acknowledging that "the number of victims is difficult to determine," nevertheless put forward preliminary figures of 35 dead at Luanguba, 5 at Kanii and 22 at Buabo. In late August, the number of dead counted since July was estimated at 2000, and the number of villages burned at 50. The displaced were scattered among the villages of Walikale or the neighbouring territories, particularly at Kashebere and Lobe. Conditions were described as particularly difficult, since most of them had no family members to give them shelter. At Goma, tens of thousands of refugees were housed by family members or assisted by Caritas.
c) Direct involvement of the Rwandan Patriotic Army
The participation of Rwandese RPA troops in these massacres has been conclusively proven. Besides the copious testimony taken from various independent sources, this participation was confirmed by official sources, e.g. message No. 01/398 of August 11 to the Minister of the Interior from the Governor of North-Kivu. The message, which reported a concentration of armed forces along the border from Monigi, specified that heavy caliber weapons were being aimed at Congolese territory and that heavily armed Rwandese soldiers were departing by the hundreds in inflatable rubber boats from Masisi to provide reinforcement to the Congolese army operating in that area." The tone and content of the message suggest that the Congolese authorities -- at least those of North-Kivu -- were not informed of the impending Rwandese army intervention. It appears that the operations of this army against Congolese peasants and villages were completely beyond the control of the Congolese administrative and military authorities.
It might be inferred from the reaction of Minister of the Interior Mwenze Kongolo, after an incident occurred November 12 at Goma when he was present in that city, that even the Kinshasa government was not informed of the Rwandese army's repeated incursions. That day, an armed skirmish occurred at the Katindo military camp in Goma between Zairian and Rwandese army soldiers (150-300 men according to sources) who had found refuge there after fleeing the fighting with the ex-FAR troops. Military sources cited in the Kinshasa newspaper La Référence Plus attributed the clashes to alleged resistance met by the Congolese soldiers while attempting to disarm the Rwandese. The thirty-minute clashes left a total of 8 dead on the Rwandese side and 7 on the Congolese side, again according to La Référence Plus. The newspaper stated that, when made aware of the incidents, Minister Mwenze publicly promised sanctions against "these individuals who, pass themselves off as Congolese citizens by day, but who by night turn into soldiers, committing acts of vandalism on Congolese territory before tranquilly returning to their Rwandese base of operations." He indicated that he had asked Kigali to withdraw its troops from the country immediately.
It is true that Acting Chief of Staff of the Congo National Army, General James Kabari, officer of the Rwandese National Army, clearly implied that the mission of the 22 officers that he had dispatched to the region on September 12 was to "pursue the common enemy with neighbouring Rwanda." He added that the Congolese military would be permitted to pursue the enemy even on Rwandese territory and vice versa. Even more plainly, he specified that, "for a soldier, the consequence of war is more war, because, when you burn but neglect to go back and root out the blades of grass that survived the fire, the whole job is botched."
An Undisciplined Army:
While a rebel force, the ADFL was renowned for the discipline of its men, their propriety and good behaviour in contrast with the notoriously undisciplined FAZ. The conquest of a new territory was always followed by reeducation sessions during which the army's young officers taught the defeated FAZ soldiers respect for life and the public good. The reeducation courses began in December 1996 in the Rumangabo and Kibumba camps, yet it is in this very province, after only twelve months of contact with the population, that the ADFL army is showing its more sinister face, and committing the same undisciplined acts for which it had blamed Mobutu's army." (28)
The presence of mass graves in the location of massacres
To conclude this section on large-scale massacres, we reprint the complete list of mass graves included by Special Rapporteur RobertoGarretón in his report to the UN Commission on Human Rights of April 2, 1997:
"BIGIRA (Kabare region, Southern Kivu): 100 individuals from the Alfajeri School were reportedly buried in a mass grave.
BIRAMBIZO (Masisi region, Northern Kivu): In early January, soldiers laid siege to the city, took the children from their families and killed their parents before their eyes. The bodies were piled behind the church and a $3 fee was charged for recovery of each body.
BITONGA: One morning, the men living there were removed by members of ADFL and taken to houses where they were executed. A witness reports having helped to bury 134 bodies.
BUKOMBO: On 31 December 1996, ADFL called a meeting and fired on those who attended, killing 300 persons. The rebel soldiers destroyed the hospital's stocks of medicine in order to prevent treatment of the wounded.
BURHALE (Bukavu region, Southern Kivu): According to a report transmitted to the Special Rapporteur, allegedly by an eyewitness who also mentions the Red Cross as a source, the rebels murdered some 600 refugees at the Kashusha camp. In reality, there are said to have been over 2,000 victims. The same information was provided by Deputy Prime Minister Kamanda wa Kamanda in a communiqué dated 16 February 1997.
CHIBUMBI (Masisi region, Northern Kivu): An individual from the Hutu ethnic group reports having spent three days near Numbi burying many victims killed by the rebels.
CHIDAHO (on the road to Irabata): A witness informed the Rapporteur that he had seen a common grave, but no bodies, in early November.
CHIMANGA (Walungu region, Southern Kivu): According to a report from Deputy Prime Minister Kamanda dated 16 February 1997, about 500 persons were killed at this camp; the same information was provided by Amnesty International. Other sources state that 103 bodies were found.
CHANZU (near Jomba, Rutshuru region, Northern Kivu): According to a non-governmental organization, 207 people were killed in an ambush after being called to a meeting at a church.
GOMA: A communiqué from the Zairian Association for the Protection of Human Rights (AZADHO), one of the country's most respected human rights organizations, reported mass graves in the following locations: (a) in Trois Paillotes, near the Kalamo Hotel; (b) behind the Petroset petrol station near the TMK/Goma junction; (c) in the "Axe Katindo" (some 15 graves); (d) in the Anuarité primary school, beside the basketball court; (e) at the small Kasoko Kacheche market (at least two graves); (f) at the small Kaoko Instigo market; (g) in a corridor at the home of the principal regional inspector, across from the Amani high school.
JOMBA (Rutshuru region, Northern Kivu): Armed forces from Rwanda killed a priest and five nuns in early November.
KABINGO (Masisi region, Northern Kivu): Many Hutu fighters were killed in late January during an ADFL search for arms at the home of Mwami Shrimpumu. When the Hutu fighters had left, the rebels killed civilians.
KAGUSA (Masisi, Northern Kivu): The residents were called to a meeting where they were attacked with knives. The event took place in December 1996.
KAHINDO (Rutshuru region, Northern Kivu): According to a communiqué from Deputy Prime Minister Kamanda, about 100 persons were killed at this camp. An NGO, Grande vision pour la défense des droits de l'homme, reported 200 deaths, but a letter from an individual claiming to have been an eyewitness mentions 3,500 deaths.
KAHIRA: According to AZADHO, Zairian Hutus and refugees were massacred.
KAPANZI: According to a Burundian refugee, the camp was shelled from Rwanda.
KAROBA (Masisi, Northern Kivu): One Saturday in January 1997, 35 residents were killed at the church by ADFL troops, who returned the next day and killed an additional 42 persons.
KASIBA (Southern Kivu): The Rapporteur interviewed a witness who stated that an individual he knew who had lost three relatives had told him that Banyamulenge troops had killed many people there in early October. He claimed to know of the existence of 103 bodies at that location.
KASURA: Both the Party of Nationalists for Integral Development (PANADI) and AZADHO state that Zairian Hutus and refugees were killed there.
KATALE (Rutshuru region, Northern Kivu): Both Deputy Prime Minister Kamanda and AZADHO have mentioned the murder of 500 (the Deputy Prime Minister) or 200-300 persons (AZADHO) at this refugee camp. The Rapporteur visited the camp and was informed of the death of 143 persons.
KIBABI: According to a second-hand account from a member of the Hutu ethnic group, as well as a PANADI report, many people have been killed in various ADFL attacks.
KIBUMBA: According to the above-mentioned AZADHO communiqué, between 50 and 100 skeletons are located in each of three locations at this refugee camp. The Rapporteur visited the camp and was able to verify the existence of graves, but not the number of bodies.
KIBUMBA PARC: The Rapporteur visited two locations in this park, where there were obvious signs of graves, but was unable to determine the number of bodies buried there. However, a witness who claimed to have found a number of bodies stated that "they were still warm, as if they had been killed that same day; this was during the month of January".
KIBUMBA VILLAGE: Over 1,500 bodies were found in the village, removed and buried by a group of residents, one of whom told the Rapporteur that "there were many of them whom we did not know, but we thought it would be humane to bury them. We were very frightened". According to a public report by Grande Vision, there were a total of 2,500 deaths in the three areas of Kibumba.
KILIMANYOKA (Northern Kivu): The Rapporteur observed 46 bodies in graves, some of whom had been found in January, freshly buried, naked and with their hands bound.
KIRUMBU: According to AZADHO, a massacre occurred in this location as well.
LUMBISHI (Masisi, Northern Kivu): A witness reports that ADFL killed several Hutu civilian refugees and Zairians. Although various important details are provided, the date on which the incident occurred is not mentioned. ADFL stated that all the victims were Interahamwe.
MATANDA (Masisi region, Northern Kivu): A health centre was destroyed by rebel soldiers, two male nurses were killed and the parish church was pillaged, creating a climate of terror which seems to persist even today. The Rapporteur came within five kilometres of the site, but a military patrol at Mushaki prevented him from continuing. According to PANADI, 250 people died in the incident.
MUNIGI: Decomposing, strong-smelling bodies were reportedly found in the woods near Munigi along the Kibumba-Rutshuru road in Northern Kivu. The incident has been mentioned by only one witness, who has not been questioned.
MUGUNGA (Katindo region, Goma, Northern Kivu): Deputy Prime Minister Kamanda reports that some 3,000 persons were killed at the refugee camp here. AZADHO claims that there were some 10,000 deaths, that the incident took place on 14-15 November 1996 and that the attack was carried out by the Rwandan Patriotic Army and the Mai-Mai militia.
MUGUNGA: According to AZADHO and an unidentified witness, the remains of 12 men, 10 women and 30 children, all of them shot through the head, were found at a location an hour and a half north of Mugunga.
MUSHABWABWE (community of Bwito, Northern Kivu): According to a major local NGO, ADFL attacked and killed former members of the Rwandan Armed Forces and Interahamwe; no dates or numbers were provided.
NGUNGU (Masisi region, Northern Kivu): According to AZADHO, the Mai-Mai militia and ADFL jointly attacked Ngungu on 19 November in reprisal for a massacre committed by refugees fleeing the Mugunga camp, resulting in about 1,500 victims, many of them innocent.
NYAKARIBA (Masisi region, Northern Kivu): Various sources mentioned that there was a massacre in this region on 22 December 1996, although the accounts vary considerably in numbers and other details. It is reported that out of a population of 25,000, only the women and children survived an attack by Mai-Mai with ADFL support on 24 December 1996. PANADI claims that there were 300 deaths. A witness reported bodies with their hands tied behind their backs.
NYAMITABA (community of Bashali, MASISI region, Northern Kivu, primarily Hutu): On the morning of 21 November 1996, Mai-Mai and ADFL troops reportedly killed some 50,000 persons, including about 1,000 refugees. An anonymous witness stated that there had been 4,500 deaths, but witnesses interviewed by the Rapporteur said that, while the events had indeed taken place, the actual numbers were far less. The magnitude of the incident called for a visit to the location by the Rapporteur, but he was unable to do so for the reasons mentioned above.
RUHEGERI (Masisi region, Northern Kivu): According to a witness's account read by the Rapporteur, the village was attacked one night in December 1996 by ADFL, resulting in the death of around 400 unarmed civilians, although other accounts mention 80 deaths.
SAKE (Northern Kivu): The Rapporteur received reports on the spot of a mass grave at a coffee plantation in which, according to AZADHO, several dozen refugees killed by the Mai-Mai militia were buried. According to a witness interviewed by the Rapporteur, five of the seven individuals murdered in one attack were women.
SHABUNDA: In a newspaper interview, a priest reported having been told by Rwandan refugees that ADFL soldiers had killed or caused the disappearance of their younger companions. It was also reported that rebels had attacked the refugee camp there, claiming an undetermined number of victims.
SHINDA (locality of Bweza, Rutshuru region, Northern Kivu): Rebels attacked the market in early January 1997, killing several people.
TONGO: A Rwandan refugee told the Special Rapporteur that "on 19 January, about 1.30 p.m., we were attacked by the criminals, who killed my father, my mother, my wife and my son. I fled. They killed 38 people. The attacking soldiers appeared to be Tutsis." (29)
In addition to these examples, there are numerous other first-hand accounts and reports that the civilian populations of Rwandese Hutu origin, as well as the Zairian civilian population, were targeted for large-scale massacres.(30)
Summary
II.ii. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment
Definition of Torture
The definition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is that of the "Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment" of 1984.
Article 1 of the Convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishmen of 1984 defines torture as
"any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions."(31)
Paragraph 2 of the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment states that "any act of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is an offence to human dignity and shall be condemned as a denial of the purposes of the human rights ans fundamental freedoms." (32)
More specifically on the subject of torture, a recent international custom holds that it is not necessary for the acts to have been committed by an agent of the State.
As to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, in addition to the definition cited above, they should be understood as a set of acts of a similar nature but constituting grave violations of the laws and customs applicable in armed conflicts or of the Geneva Conventions. In particular, these acts include taking civilian hostages, deliberately depriving a civilian of his right to a fair and regular trial, deliberately causing suffering or grave injury, deliberately harming another person's health, illegally and illegitimately destroying or appropriating another person's property.
As well, Articles 49 and 50 of the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in the Armed Forces in the Field of August 12, 1949, proscribes the above-mentioned acts. Article 49 makes anyone who commits or gives the order to commit any of the grave infractions listed in that Convention subject to prosecution. (33)
And among these infractions, Article 50, importantly, mentions the fact willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to bodyor health...
Similarly, Common Article 3 of the Convention sets forth that::
"Persons taking not part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds , detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.
To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above- mentioned persons:
a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture
c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment"(34)
There are numerous reports (35) of the systematic use of torture by all parties to the conflict. For example, the AZADHO report of November 1997, which discusses the systematic and widespread ADFL practice of whipping the stomach, causing death in many cases.
"Acts of torture, previously alleged to have been committed by FAZ soldiers, were common currency in North Kivu (see, on this subject, the AZADHO report of April 1996... and the 1995 and 1996 annual reports). However, it would not be an exaggeration to state that, compared to the FAZ period, torture became even more systematic and methodical with the ADFL soldiers, in particular those of Tutsi origin. One of the most degrading and common of these practices is that of administering several dozen whiplashes (up to 250 to 300 in some cases) to individuals on trial for any reason whatever, including civil matters. Cases of death have been reported following these tortures. One such was that of Matata, a resident of Goma/Birere, who died March 24, 1997 after receiving 250 blows with a club to the stomach in a Goma prison guarded by ADFL soldiers. He had been arrested the previous evening by soldiers following an accusation of fraud by his neighbours. In April, a Musinga peasant denounced by his creditor to the ADFL soldiers on duty at Kiseguru (Rutshuru) reportedly received 250 whiplashes to the stomach and died the next day. There is also a report of two Nyakakoma (Rutshuru) peasants who died the same month under the same conditions. At Kibirizi (Masisi) in the month of July, a Baptist pastor, David Kyalumba Tutsi soldiers administered 60 whiplashes for a matter of bags of cement he allegedly borrowed from a nephew. During the same period, the same soldiers administered 100 whiplashes to the stomach of Jules Mandefu and Muhoza, accused of having beaten a soldier. On August 18, around 6:00 p.m., Makasi Paluku, residing at Avenue Katoyi No. 6, Goma/Mabanga was accosted in front of the CBK hospital in Goma by six soldiers attempting to extort money from him. To overcome his resistance, the soldiers stabbed him several times with a knife. He was bleeding all over when taken to the Konde health centre by neighbours alerted by his screams.
Peasants who were victims of theft of their crops were sometimes tortured when attempting to resist. This was the case of Ndarugenda Mufuabule, 34, who was whipped on July 5 at Monigi (Goma) by soldiers on duty at the Kanyarutsinya camp, while trying to prevent them from taking bananas from his farm.
Also reported were rapes, like that committed on the family lot, the night of July 10, against Cécile Mukiranya, 14, daughter of Samuel Mardadi, by soldiers brandishing weapons at her to prevent her from screaming. The victim was given first-aid at a small dispensary for her injuries, then transferred to a general hospital in Goma. On August 23 at Rugetsi, a small locality 50 km northeast of Beni, an unidentified soldier fired a bullet into the stomach of Kavuo Ndungo, 15, after she put up fierce resistance to a rape attempt. She was admitted to Mutwanga general hospital and died there on September 11. According to an AZADHO/Beni report, cases of sexual harassment and rape proliferated in the locality of Kalau in September and October to the point that the local young girls fled the village and took refuge in the fields.
Other cases of fatal torture were reported at Beni, such as that of Jean Babote, a resident of the Mabolio district, who was found Sunday, October 5 lying in a pool of blood near the Mabolio military camp. Initial observation suggested that the victim had been tortured all night, probably by camp soldiers. According to the victim's family, an unidentified camp officer spent the following Tuesday at the hospital threatening the family with reprisals if camp soldiers were implicated. Jean Babote died October 12, after exactly 1 week in Beni general hospital." (36)
Even more telling are the reports of Amnesty International, which provide a wealth of details on the practice of torture and other inhuman treatment by the ADFL. An excerpt follows:
"Many of the people who have been arrested by the ADFL have reported being subjected to torture and ill-treatment. Women have been beaten across the breasts and raped, in violation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions in the period prior to 17 May 1997 and in violation of Article 7 of the ICCPR and Article 5 of the ACHPR after that date. Men have been beaten, including on their abdomens and genitals. Some of the detainees have received as many as 40 lashes twice daily. Some members of the ADFL are reported to have spat in the mouths of their victims, a practice that many say is meant to humiliate the victims.
Detention centres notorious for torture in eastern DRC include Katindo military barracks, in a cell known as Israel, and at the headquarters in Goma of the Agence nationale de renseignements (ANR), National Intelligence Agency. Many of the torture victims in Goma, the capital of North-Kivu, are reported to be Congolese Hutu. For example, Léonard Ruzige Midiburo was repeatedly punched and beaten with military belts known as cordelettes at the time of his detention in Goma on 17 March, at around 7.30 pm. soldiers who arrested him reportedly shot in the air as they threw him into the back of a Toyota 2200 pick-up, registration number KV 8309C. He was reportedly held in a room of a house previously inhabited by a former member of the Zairian security service, behind the Union zaïroise des banques (UZB), Zairian Union of Banks. He reportedly received beatings to practically every part of his bodyand had his hair pulled from his head. He was also stabbed between the fingers, before he was transferred to a Gendarmerie cell. His torturers took his personal property, including a watch and 270 US dollars. He was subsequently released on 23 March after the soldiers who arrested him failed to return. A few days before his arrest, Léonard Ruzinge Midiburo had been visited by members of the ANR who reportedly asked him to report to the ANR office in connexion with "unidentified" persons staying at his home.
Eight men in Goma accused by the ADFL of armed robbery were tortured at the Gendarmerie headquarters, locally known as Circo (Huitième circonspection militaire), after their arrest on 29 May 1997. The victims are: Moshe Kamanzi, Alimasi Lubenga, Shindano Kalwira, Thomas Ezolanga, Jean-Pierre Habimana, Faustin Birindwa (no relation to former Zaire Prime Minister), Bahati Yaya Ciza and Anzosoni Nombi. They were repeatedly kicked and beaten with sticks and rifle butts. On 31 May irons were reportedly welded around their legs and arms on the orders of an ADFL political commissar. The heat generated during the welding inflicted burns to their legs and arms, which became badly infected. The authorities continued to detain the suspects without medical care. Local human rights groups have been assisting the victims with treatment. They were still held in November 1997 without charge or trial.
Victims of torture have included people accused of non-political offences. For example, a man known as Matata in North-Kivu province's Rutshuru town was so severely tortured on 23 March 1997 by ADFL soldiers that he died the following day. He had apparently been falsely accused by a local family of stealing 25 US dollars. He was repeatedly beaten on the stomach and genitals. Members of his family who visited him in an ADFL cell found him bleeding from his genitals and rectum. He died from his injuries for which he did not receive medical care.
Between 1 and 3 am on 22 June 1997 ADFL soldiers in Kananga, West-Kasai (Kasai occidental) province, subjected Roman Catholic nuns of the Carmelite Order of St Joseph to severe beatings. The soldiers injured a security guard with his machete as they broke into the nuns' compound. The nuns were severely beaten after they refused to have intercourse with the soldiers and failed to produce the money demanded. The soldiers left with the nuns' property, including 2,000 US dollars.
Children too have been subjected to torture and ill-treatment. For example, 52 Rwandese Hutu refugee children abducted on 26 April by the ADFL from Lwiro hospital, 30 kilometres west of Bukavu, were kept in a closed truck contained, beaten up and were denied food and drink for three days. The children and 10 adult refugees were abducted by about 20 members of the ADFL, including a local commander who threatened hospital workers and accused them of treating enemies. Some medical workers were beaten before the ADFL drove the children away. The children were being treated for various illnesses and the effects of malnutrition at the hospital. The ADFL returned the children and the adults to the hospital after an outcry by international organizations, including UNICEF which was paying for their care. UNICEF reportedly said that the children were in a pretty bad condition when they were returned. The refugees were subsequently sent to Rwanda before the children recovered from their illnesses.
In July, David Kyalumba, a pastor of the Katsimu branch of the Communauté baptiste du Kivu (CBK/Katsimu), Kivu Baptist Community, was reportedly subjected to 60 lashes by ADFL soldiers at Kabirizi, Butembo district. He was reportedly beaten simply because his nephew, Petuel, failed to pay a debt for two bags of cement. Two men, Jules Mandefu and Muhoza, were reportedly subjected to more than 100 lashes for allegedly beating up a soldier in Kibirizi.
Amnesty International is investigating reports that members of the ADFL have deliberately subjected former members of the FAZ to beatings, deprivation of food and other forms of ill-treatment. Some are reported to have been deliberately denied medical care. The ill-treatment, which is reported to have caused scores of deaths among former members of the FAZ, has reportedly taken place in training camps at Kitona and at Kamina in Bas-Congo and Shaba provinces, respectively." (37)
Furthermore, the report of Special Rapporteur Roberto Garretón presents graphic details of the actions of the FAZ, the ADFL, the ex-FAR and the Interahamwe militiamen:
"Acts committed by FAZ or the Zairian authorities:
Killings and, in particular, all forms of homicide, unknown during peacetime, have been particularly common during the conflict. The most frequent victims have been individuals suspected of being members of, or merely of sympathizing with, the Banyamulenge. In Bukavu, the most serious accusations have been directed at SARM, but there have also been numerous complaints against GC and DSP, which were sent to the region to restore order, with functions similar to those of ZCSO in the refugee camps. There have been many reports of summary executions and, generally speaking, a veritable manhunt for anyone with a Batutsi ancestor or relative, living with, or suspected of having contacts with the Batutsi; has been unleashed throughout the country. In late October, Rwandan students in Kinshasa were persecuted and their property was stolen to prevent them returning to their country. Many public demonstrations, organized to protest the presence of Rwandans, have led to the arrest of Tutsi and the stoning of their houses and other buildings. The above-mentioned Deputy Governor of Southern Kivu, Lwasi Ngabo Lwanbanji, was an extreme
case, but not the only one. In Kinshasa, Goma and Bukavu, the Special Rapporteur heard numerous reports of this type of intimidation. Many witnesses stated that FAZ preferred the easy task of seeking out Tutsi civilians in the towns to that of serving on the battlefield. Cases of killings include the following: (a) Southern Kivu, September: some 40 civilians, including children, were executed in Kamanyola. Among them were Faustin Sebugorore and Rukenerwa Ndatabaye; (b) Lueba, September: some 100 Zairian Tutsi, including women and children, were murdered, reportedly with
the help of Zairian civilians of the Bembe ethnic group; (c) Lutabura, 30 September: FAZ, with the help of civilians, killed some 100 Banyamulengue as a reprisal for the massacre of 19 September in Epombo; (d) Lusenda, late October: FAZ, with the help of Babembe combatants, murdered Lenge Rugaza Kabili, Chief of the Bavira, for having protected Batutsi; (e) Bunia, 1 and 2 December: FAZ soldiers murdered Nandi and Pakistani Hindu shopkeepers.
Assault, mutilation, torture and cruel treatment or punishment: (a) Bunia, 1 and 2 December: FAZ soldiers raped and robbed women; (b) Kinshasa, 21 October: persons who had been arrested and held at SARM on charges of collaboration with the rebels were subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment. Women's vaginas were examined to determine whether they were carrying messages, and men's sex organs manhandled to verify their virility. All were wounded with bayonets.
Hostage-taking: (a) Hombo, 29 October: Lieutenant-Colonel Prosper Muganguzi Nabyolwawas taken hostage and threatened with execution. He was then reportedly sent to Kisangani, arrested by General Eluki and transferred to Kinshasa, where he is still in custody, seriously ill; (b)Bunia, November and December: under the FAZ-imposed reign of terror, young people and several shopkeepers were taken hostage.
Attacks on the civilian population: (a) Uvira, 14 September: 286 civilians were expelled from Zaire to Rwanda, and a further 33 were expelled the following day; (b) Kinshasa, 11 November: a medical centre belonging to UDPS leader Denis Bazinga was looted.
Acts committed by the rebel forces:
There have been many reports of atrocities committed by ADFL, which habitually separates men from women and children. It is usually possible to determine the fate of the latter, but never that of the former.
De nombreux témoignages font État d'atrocités et soulignent l'habitude qu'a l'AFDL de séparer les hommes des femmes et des enfants. On connaît généralement le sort réservé à ces derniers mais on n'entend plus jamais parler des premiers.
Killings and, in particular, all forms of homicide: (a) Southern Kivu, 8 September: a Banyamulengue attack resulted in the death of FAZ members, including a colonel; (b) Epombo, 19 September: Banyamulengue killed some 150 Zairian civilians and 3 soldiers; (c) Aboke, 23 September: rebels killed 14 civilians; (d) Nageko, 27 September: Banyamulengue killed 2 women; (e) Lemera, 6 October: in a barbarous act, and in flagrant violation of article 3.2 of the Geneva Conventions, a group of Banyamulengue attacked the hospital in Lemera and killed 34 people, including 17 patients. They later murdered 18 parishioners and a priest in a church in Kidote; (f)Minembwe and Munyaka, 10 October: rebels killed 150 and 19 civilians, respectively; (g) Runingorefugee camp, 13 October: a rebel attack left 4 dead and 6 wounded; (h) Mukera, 14 October: numerous civilians were killed or wounded in a rebel attack; (i) Kiliba, 18 October: civilians, including women, children and infants, were killed in cold blood, in some cases with knives, by the rebels; (j) Kuberezi refugee camp, 21 October: Burundian refugees were killed at dawn; (k) Bukavu, late October: Banyamulengue soldiers killed many people, including Archbishop Munzihirwa, Jean Baptiste Bahati and Professor Wasso, when they captured the town; (38) (l) Goma, early November: rebels killed 2,754 people, roughly half of them Zairian civilians, when they took the town; (m) Bukavu, 18 November: some 500 people, including a priest who was protesting the violence, were murdered at the Chimanga refugee camp, Bukavu; (n) Beni, December: the bodies of 120 Zairian soldiers were found. There was nothing to suggest that they had died in battle.
Assault, mutilation, torture, cruel treatment or punishment, attacks against personal dignity and inhuman or degrading treatment: All reports indicate that ADFL kills rather than takes prisoners.
Hostage-taking: There are no reports of this practice.
Arbitrary arrests and convictions without trial: Generally speaking, the rebel forces do not take prisoners, a practice consistent with the presence in their ranks of the above-mentioned Mai Mai.
Acts committed by former FAR members and interahamwe:
The violence of this group - which includes those responsible for the genocide in Rwanda - has been noted in all the reports of the Special Rapporteur.
Assault, mutilation, torture, cruel treatment or punishment, attacks against personal dignity and inhuman or degrading treatment: (a) Kashiba, Bukavu, 31 October: four Spanish Marist monks working in the Nyamirangwe refugee camp (Servando Mayor, Miguel Angel Isla, Julio Rodríguez and Fernando de la Fuente) were killed by a group of some 100 interahamwe; (b) Kitshanga, Masisi, 6-7 November: 20 Zairian civilians, including Biku Sikawana, former Mayor of Goma, and the wife and children of Jean Marie Kati-Kati, a well-known human rights advocate, were killed by
interahamwe; (c) during their westward flight from Southern Kivu, former FAR members and interahamwe took a large number of civilians hostage and later killed them, particularly in Walikale and Masisi.
Assault, mutilation, torture, cruel treatment or punishment, attacks against personal dignity and inhuman or degrading treatment: There are no reports of these practices.
Hostage-taking: In the refugee camps, former FAR members and interahamwe held as permanent hostages their own Hutu comrades who had accompanied them into exile but had not participated in the genocide, as insurance against being forced to lay down their arms. Contrary to what had long been believed on the basis of the small number of refugees returning home - despite UNHCR efforts and pressure by the Government of Zaire - the desire of the innocent to return is demonstrated by the fact that, once free of the soldiers, over 700,000 did so. This figure may give an idea of the number who had been held hostage. The tighter control exercised by Mugunga made it possible for hostages to be held for a longer time. Furthermore, many Zairians took hostages as they fled after the fall of Goma, obliging their victims to accompany them as human shields against an attack by a multinational force, ADFL or RPA.
Arbitrary arrests and convictions without trial: They take no prisoners." (39)
It is apparent from all these reports that the distinction between the crime of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishments is often one of mere form, since in many cases, these acts preceded, accompanied or were followed by the deaths of the victims in a relatively short period of time. In this respect, they essentially constitute a dissimulated punishment of deprivation of life, and therefore form an integral part of the strategy of extermination of well-identified civilian populations.
Summary
II.iii. Forced Disappearances
The Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances of December 18, 1992 (40) does not provide an exhaustive definition of this crime. However, Article 1 of this Declaration states that "any act of enforced disappearance is an offense to human dignity." It is condemned as a denial of the purposes of the Charter of the United Nations and as a grave and flagrant violation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and reaffirmed and developed in international instruments in this field.
Paragraph 2 of the same article states that "any act of enforced disappearance places the persons subjected thereto outside the protection of the law and inflicts severe suffering on them and their families." In this regard, "it constitutes a violation of the rules of international law guaranteeing, inter alia, the right to recognition as a person before the law, the right to liberty and security of the person and the right not to be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
And in fact, in the war that took place in the Democratic Republic of Congo, there are many first-hand accounts and reports of the numerous cases of forced disappearance perpetrated by the ADFL combatants and their allies, as well as the FAZ, the ex-FAR and the Interahamwe.
The reports of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Fédération Internationale des ligues des droits de l'homme clearly explain how refugees disappeared on a massive scale in the environs of Kisangani and Mbandaka, after the humanitarian organizations managed to locate them. Such disappearances, on the order of several thousand men, women and children, cannot be categorized as other than "widespread and systematic extermination" of Rwandese Hutu refugees (the disappeared in question) by the ADFL troops and their allies.
So, according to Amnesty International:
"Tens of thousands of unarmed civilians, most of them Rwandese refugees are feared dead after they were abducted or were forced into forests by the ADFL, away from the reach of humanitarian agencies. It is feared that many of the victims may have been subjected to unlawful killings or have died from starvation, exposure and curable illnesses. The most blatant of such cases was the sudden removal in late April 1997 of as many as 40,000 refugees from Kasese and Biaro camps, south of Kisangani. The refugees had been fleeing westwards from refugee camps in Kivu, as the ADFL frontline advanced. The group of refugees could not be found after they were reportedly attacked by ADFL combatants and local Congolese civilians armed with domestic weapons such as machetes.
Several days before the attack, ADFL leaders in Kisangani had restricted access to the camps by humanitarian workers to two hours a day. Local people and humanitarian workers identified most of the troops in and around Kisangani as RPA who had replaced contingents from Shaba province. Rwandese Vice-President Paul Kagame reportedly claimed in July 1997 that the RPA had played a key role in the capture of Kisangani and other key DRC towns, including Kinshasa. On 20 April six Congolese civilians were killed near Kasese camp. The killings were blamed on the refugees, although the killers are not known to have been identified. The ADFL had for several weeks been broadcasting claims that humanitarian organizations were helping refugees at the expense of Congolese nationals. On 21 April, members of the ADFL prevented humanitarian organizations from having access to the camps, although thousands, including about 5,000 at Biaro, among the 80,000 or more refugees in the two camps were severely malnourished or too ill to travel. As many as 70 refugees had been dying daily in each camp. During the subsequent three days, the camps were reportedly attacked by ADFL and Congolese civilians. A Congolese working for a humanitarian organization who was in the area at the time reported that as many as 500 refugees were killed at Kasese camp. Local people reported seeing a bulldozer being used to dig mass grades and bury those killed.
By the time humanitarian workers and journalists were allowed to visit Kasese camp on 23 April, the camp was entirely deserted. Journalists reported that they were prevented by the ADFL from examining the camp to establish what had occurred. They were also prevented from visiting Biaro. During the visit, members of the ADFL shot into the forest, claiming that they were under attack, although the journalists could not detect any gunfire being returned. When some 40,000 refugees were found by humanitarian workers in subsequent days, some of them bore bullet and machete wounds. Some of the women refugees claimed that boys and men among them had been selected and taken away by the ADFL, and that gunshots were heard moments later. The ADFL denied involvement in the attack on the refugees, but continued to prevent humanitarian organizations from going beyond Biaro to seek out refugees still in hiding or unable to walk. A Rwandese government official responsible for refugees visited the area and rejected reports that refugees had been attacked or forced out of the camps by the ADFL.
Amnesty International received reports that soldiers were seen on 29 April herding refugees southwards in the direction of Ubundu, as supplies were being brought to Biaro. Other sources reported that some 500 refugees were loaded on to a train which went south of Biaro; their fate remains unknown.
A journalist who visited Kasese camp in May 1997 reported seeing about 40 people there collecting evidence such as bullet cartridges and machetes in an apparent attempt to remove evidence of the attack. He reportedly saw a pile of firewood at the camp and he was told by two men that they were going to burn bodies. The reporter was subsequently chased away by several ADFL soldiers and civilians men armed with machetes.
There have been numerous reports of abductions by members of the ADFL in eastern DRC. Most of the victims are reported to be Congolese Hutu. For example, Musafiri Kabanda, a 27-year-old trader was reportedly arrested on 20 April by members of the ADFL at a roadblock at Nyanzale. The driver of the vehicle in which he was travelling was ordered by members of the ADFL to leave without him. He is now known to have been seen by November 1997. Nyangoma, a Hutu trader, has reportedly not been seen since after ADFL soldiers removed him from Kibirizi market in Butembo district, North-Kivu province. Mbitsemunda Mazanga, neighbourhood chief of Ndosho, has not been seen since he was taken into custody at the Gendarmerie headquarters (Circo) in Goma, around 16 April.
Gasigwa Ruhiza, an agricultural produce seller from Nyabushongo, in Goma's Buhimba suburb, was abducted on 8 May by members of the ADFL from Katindo market. He was reportedly taken away in a green Pajero vehicle. His whereabouts have remained unknown. Local people reportedly recognized one of his abductors as an ADFL soldier.
Other Hutu who have been abducted include Isaie Nsenga Rubaka, a nurse, and Emmanuel Gustave Bangubute, a seed dealer, who lived in Goma's Birere suburb on Avenue du 20 mai. They were reportedly taken by members of the ADFL on 1 May and they have not been seen since.
The whereabouts of 17 people in Rwindi, North-Kivu province, remain unknown after their arrest on 26 May 1997. They were reportedly among a group of about 20 arrested after an ADFL soldier accidentally shot a colleague. The soldier's death was reportedly blamed on the local population. Among the 17 who were abducted is one called Kabwana, son of Busali." (41)
The account of AZADHO in the Kivu Region is also particularly eloquent on the subject of these forced disappearances. In its report from November, 1997, AZADHO indicates the following:
"Very rare, in fact almost non-existent in North Kivu and the rest of the country before the ADFL war, forced disappearances began to be reported from North Kivu in November 1996 and were practiced on a large scale, particularly against people of the Hutu tribe.
On May 2, a Hutu from Ishasha (Rutshuru), Zihalirwa Zihali‘Omugabo, told AZADHO/Goma that he had been without news of his father, Clément Mujarwanda, and his uncle, Vincent Chikala Ruba, since their arrest on April 3 at Ishasha on the orders of a Tutsi officer nicknamed "Commander Césaire." They were believed to have both been executed the same day. An official of the local post office named Lwaboshi, who had appealed to Commander Césaire for the release of the two victims, was reported also arrested and no news of him had been heard since April 25, the last day he had been seen alive.
In another incident occurred May 26 at Vitshumbi (Rutshuru) after the murder of a Tutsi soldier by unknown individuals, "Commander Vincent" ordered the entire population of Vitshumbi to be assembled. He then ordered 19 people chosen at random to be taken to the neighbouring tourist resort of Rwindi. Only five of these people returned to the village, where nothing has been heard of the others since. Another Hutu named Nyangoma, a merchant at the Kibirizi (Masisi) market, failed to reappear after he was taken away August 15 by Tutsi soldiers while displaying his products. On August 5, AZADHO/Goma took statements from Mrs. Kenzia Yalala who had no news of her husband, Kayamba, director of the Musenge school in Kilongote (Walikale), since his arrest July 16 by Tutsi soldiers while he was participating in a meeting of the school authorities. According to his wife, those arresting him had accused Kayamba of having guided ‘whites' on a tour of mass graves in the area.
On October 27, AZADHO/North Kivu took a deposition from a Hutu from the locality of Kahundu (Masisi), Mrs. Igimanizanye, 32, who was without news of her husband, Seninga Habishuti, and thirteen other Hutu peasants from the same village. All of them had been taken away October 18 by soldiers without an arrest warrant. The thirteen other victims are (1) Sebutimbiri, (2) Kagayano Kazarenda, (3) Gasyo Ntamuturano, (4) Habumuremyi Vianney, (5)Haguma Nagiriyehe, (6)Sebusogo Rekeraho, (7) Haburakindi Mubiyero, (8) Bisamaza Semusambi, (9) Sebyuza Semusambi, (10) Habishuti Rubiriye, (11) Bansangira Rudiga, (12) Singira Mugiza and (13) Rukambo Vipayabano. AZADHO/North Kivu appealed to the governor of the province on October 27, but has had no reply to its action." (42)
Summary
II.iv. Rape
Besides being listed among crimes against humanity in Articles 3 and 5 of the Statutes of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and for the Former Yugoslavia and by the International Law Commission with respect to the proposed International Criminal Court), rape comes within the terms of Article 3 of the Geneva Convention of August 12, 1949 regarding cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. It may also be defined as violence of a sexual nature committed on ethnic or religious grounds. In particular, it includes forced impregnation and attacks against human dignity, as well as forced prostitution.
Moreover, Article 5 of the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia rightly cites rape as a crime against humanity. In the case of ICT for Rwanda, the act of rape was even considered to be an act of genocide. (43)
Rape and other violence against women is regularly cited in the various reports studied by the Non-Governmental Commission. (44)
In a report on human rights violations by the security forces in Zaire, Amnesty International provides numerous accounts of rape and other torture inflicted on women by the FAZ during their retreat ahead of the advancing ADFL troops:
"FAZ soldiers fleeing from advancing ADFL forces in eastern Zaire rampaged through the town of Bunia, 200 miles north of Goma, in early December 1996. They pillaged the commercial centre of the town, throwing grenades into houses and destroying everything they could not carry away.
On 5 or 6 December, according to several local sources, soldiers brutally raped school girls at the Lycee Likovi secondary school in Bunia. The soldiers are alleged to have raped the young girls savagely and systematically - leaving seven of them dead. They went on to raid the town's maternity hospital, and raped women there. One heavily pregnant woman was reportedly killed. Then the soldiers moved on to a convent for elderly nuns. The nuns fled into the forest, but the FAZ soldiers reportedly followed them, beat them with their guns and raped some of them.
The population of the town turned against the soldiers - there were protest marches and one soldier was reportedly killed. A witness said, "these people have been pushed beyond their limits - now they are going to kill soldiers." On or around 8 December, Bunia fell to the ADFL.
This was not the only girl's secondary school to be attacked by soldiers bent upon violating young girls. At Idohu, on the road between Beni and Bunia, a witness reporting that the FAZ soldiers who went to Bunia raped and kidnapped the young girls in late November, said: "This has turned disgust with FAZ to bitter hatred."
Similar abuses against women, especially young women and girls, were reported from other places in eastern Zaire through which deserting FAZ soldiers passed. In mid-November an eye-witness in Nyankunde, 20 kilometres west of Bunia, said he had seen a number of young girls who had been seized by soldiers in Butembo. "They were crying for help as they passed through here, but were guarded by armed deserters." Amnesty International does not know what subsequently happened to these girls.
In Kisangani, six soldiers reportedly raped Wasiangalikani Yenga, a young woman who lived in the Kabondo zone, on 7 November 1996. Also in November, a soldier raped a young women - Brigitte Sumaili - who worked in the hotel Masudin where he was staying. She needed hospital treatment.
There were further reports of rape by deserting FAZ soldiers in other towns in Haut-Zaire region, and in Isiro, near Bunia, North-Kivu region, and further west between Walikale and Lubutu." (45)
Similarly, in a more recent report, Amnesty International discusses rapes committed by the FAZ soldiers:
"Numerous women, including young girls, were raped where members of the FAZ passed as they fled. Among the victims in Equateur province were four daughters of one Grégoire in Lingomo. The daughter of one Youyou was raped by four soldiers at Linkanda. Among those raped in Boende was Antoinette Booto. One man reportedly joined the ADFL to avenge the rape of his wife in Boende. Many Rwandese refugee women are also reported to have been repeatedly raped by FAZ soldiers who forced many of them to become their ‘concubines.'" (46)
In addition, Amnesty reported a range of abuse and violence against women and young girls by the soldiers of the ADFL in Kinshasa, particularly in regard to their attire, but also including cases of rape:
"When members of the ADFL arrived in Kinshasa, they tortured and ill-treated women in the context of what appears to have been a campaign against forms of dress such as miniskirts, trousers or leggings. These abuses are a violation of Article 7 of the ICCPR and Article 5 of the ACHPR and of the provisions of the CAT. Although ADFL political leaders denied that they had imposed a dress code for women, the abuses continued. For example, in the week of 19 May, members of the ADFL at a place known as Triangle de la cité verte reportedly beat a young woman wearing a miniskirt with a nail-studded piece of wood which repeatedly tore her flesh. The soldiers threatened to shoot any member of the public who tried to intervene. On 20 May, ADFL soldiers in Barumbu district publicly undressed 17-year-old Kasenge Mimi and tore her trousers in front of her parents.
On 22 May four young women wearing leggings were reportedly publicly undressed at Matete market. A 25-year-old woman was reportedly whipped 40 times during the week of 26 May. There are unconfirmed reports that she may have died from her injuries.
On 24 May one young woman who refused to remove her trousers was reportedly taken to an unknown destination by ADFL soldiers. Her companion who accepted to undress was assisted by members of the public to cover her body.
Rape by members of the ADFL has been reported, although individual testimonies are rare. Many rape victims and their relatives fail to report rape cases to limit the social stigma related to their plight. Reports of rape include that of a 17-year-old student known as Kabuo. She was reportedly returning from a market when on 15 March five members of the ADFL at the Office de route, Road Works Office, raped her in Goma. After the rape, the soldiers returned to Katindo military barracks. Solange Machozi Baeni, an 18-year-old student at the Institute of Masisi, was reportedly raped by a group of soldiers at Mushaki roadblock near Goma during the night of 3 May 1997. A number of schoolgirls at Masambo, Rwanzori county in North-Kivu, were reportedly raped by ADFL soldiers on 9 August 1997. No action is known to have been taken by the authorities against the soldiers responsible.
Reports of rape elsewhere include that of a young woman and mother of a 7-month-old baby in Kananga, the capital of West-Kasai province. She was reportedly gang-raped on 24 August 1997 by three ADFL soldiers and two civilians at Kapanga, Tshiatshia area." (47)
As a further illustration, the AZADHO Report of November 1997 notes:
"Also reported were rapes, like that committed on the family farm, the night of July 10, against Cécile Mukiranya, 14, daughter of Samuel Mardadi, by soldiers brandishing weapons at her to prevent her from screaming. The victim was given first-aid at a small dispensary for her injuries, then transferred to a general hospital in Goma. On August 23 at Rugetsi, a small locality 50 km north east of Beni, an unidentified soldier fired a bullet into the stomach of Ms. Kavuo Ndungo, 15, after she put up fierce resistance to a rape attempt. She was interned at the Mutwanga General Hospital and died there on September 11. According to an AZADHO/Beni report, cases of sexual harassment and rape proliferated in the locality of Kalau in September and October to the point that the local young girls had chosen to flee the village and take refuge in the fields." (48)
Summary
II.v. Pillaging, Village Burning and Destruction of Property as War
Crimes
Article 50 of the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in the Armed Forces in the Field of August 19, 1949 (49), prohibits, inter alia, the "extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly."
Paragraph d) of Article 2 of the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia provides the following:
"The tribunal shall have the power to prosecute persons committing or ordering to be committed grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely the following acts against persons or property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention: extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly." (50)
Throughout the war in the DRC, several facts, acts of intentional pillage, destruction and burning were attributed to the parties in conflict and more specifically, the Mayi Mayi militias, the ADFL troops and the FAZ. These facts constitute war crimes under the articles analyzed above. (51)
Summary
II.vi. Obstruction of All Forms of Humanitarian Aid
The Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (52) of 12 August 1949, in article 3, states that
"[p]ersons taking not part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds , detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria".
Article 12 of the same Convention states that "any attempts upon their lives, or violence to their persons, shall be strictly prohibited, in particular, they shall not be murdered or exterminated, subjected to torture or to biological experiments, they shall not wilfully be left without medical assistance and care, nor shall conditions exposing them to contagion or infection be created".
Article 13 of the same Convention specifies which of the persons cited in Article 12 is entitled to protection: paragraph 2 cites members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements; paragraph 1 cites members of the armed forces of a party to the conflict; paragraph 6 goes further by mentioning the inhabitants of a non- occupied territory who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces.
It is strictly forbidden to leave anyone from any of these categories of persons without medical attention or any other form of assistance.
Yet there were many reports of obstruction of humanitarian aid to refugees by the ADFL troops and their allies, on several occasions and at several locations.
Special Rapporteur Garretón, in the section of the report dealing with impediments to humanitarian action, describes this as follows:
"The annual report, submitted in December and published recently, described how "humanitarian assistance has been impeded by all parties to the conflict" (E/CN.4/1997/6, para. 209). This has grown worse during the current year, particularly in the area under rebel control.
Throughout the years of conflict, all those involved have taken the easy option of blaming the"international community", which boils down to UNHCR and the other humanitarian agencies, for all the atrocities. Thus, the Government in Kinshasa blames UNHCR for the lack of security in the camps which made possible the massacres by the rebels, regardless of the fact that it is the Government which is responsible for security throughout its territory, to which end it has also received financial and technical support from ZCSO (the Zairian Camp Security Operation). In turn,
the rebels accuse UNHCR of having failed to remove those who intimidate the refugees and allowing them to make forays into Rwanda, even though UNHCR has always urged the removal of the Interahamwe and former FAR members, a request which the Government has failed to comply with despite its promise (E/CN.4/1996/66, para. 51, and E/CN.4/1997/6, paras. 157 and 158).
Moreover, the rebels view the refugees as enemies, on the assumption that they are all armed, and this makes it undesirable, or at least unsafe, to provide assistance. Even aid is interpreted as support for the extremist refugees. Naturally, neither the humanitarian agencies nor the Rapporteur share this view.
While it is not true to say that the agencies are permanently and systematically prevented from entering the refugee camps, it is often difficult for them to do so, leading to delays, which are extremely costly in terms of human lives. The delays, for which the agencies are not responsible, give rise to criticism from the refugees, who are unaware of the huge efforts made to avoid them.
One such incident occurred during the mission. Some of the approximately 100,000 refugees who left Ubundu stopped at the Lula camp, where many of them were dying of hunger. However, UNHCR was unable to reach the camp because the Alliance refused to grant it access, on the usual grounds that it was a military threat. The refugees were asked to move 25 kilometres further south, which was absolutely impossible in view of their hungry and diseased condition. The Rapporteur hopes that the current discussions will make it possible for the aid to reach its destination." (53)
The human rights violations statistics do not tally deaths of refugees due to delays in the provision of medical care and delivery of food aid, many of which could perfectly well have been prevented.
Moreover, Amnesty International describes and denounces this "strategy of extermination" of the refugees, by refusing or obstructing the access of the humanitarian organizations to the refugees. When access was finally granted, it often served as a pretext to root them out of hiding, the better to exterminate them:
"As governments and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) pleaded for humanitarian assistance to be allowed to reach the refugees, the ADFL was actively preventing humanitarian organizations from reaching many of the refugees. Following the killing of a SCF worker and four refugees, the ADFL for several weeks denied the UNHCR permission to establish a collection centre for the repatriation of Rwandese refugees at Karuba, 45 kilometres east of Goma. The ADFL repeatedly claimed that access was being denied in the interest of humanitarian workers' security. However, many humanitarian organizations have expressed fear that the denial of access was intended to prevent them from witnessing massacres or discovering massacre sites.
Conversely, a number of humanitarian organizations have expressed concern that they were used by the ADFL to attract refugees out of their hiding only to be subsequently killed by the ADFL. One organization reported in April 1997, "Our staff believe they are part of a planned strategy of extermination with our aid and presence being used to lure people from the forest making it easier for refugees and the displaced to be subsequently killed by ADFL forces." In eastern DRC the ADFL imposed its so-called "facilitators" to travel with humanitarian organizations which expressed concern that the facilitators were used to identify the location of refugees in hiding. Once they found the refugees, the organizations were required to seek permission to assist the refugees. Some organizations reported that the permission took days to be granted, only to find that the refugees could no longer be traced, amid reports that ADFL combatants had been sent to kill the refugees in locations identified by the "facilitators." It was reported in early 1997 that the ADFL's coordinator for humanitarian organizations had access to a UNHCR vehicle equipped with radio communication which could have enabled the ADFL to monitor the activities of the UNHCR and other humanitarian agencies in eastern DRC. A UNHCR official told Amnesty International that allowing the ADFL coordinator to use a UNHCR vehicle was often the only way to get the coordinator to facilitate the agency's work. He added that confidential messages were not normally transmitted by radio. However, any access to refugees would have to be discussed with and permission sought from ADFL leaders. Moreover, access by road and air was often blocked for days or longer by local ADFL combatants.
Many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have reported that their vehicles were requisitioned or stolen by ADFL combatants for military and other purposes. In early 1997 the ADFL requisitioned about 84,000 litres of fuel intended for UNHCR vehicles used in humanitarian work. When the ADFL seized vehicles and fuel used by humanitarian organizations it must have been aware that the life-saving activities of these organizations would be severely inhibited and many refugees and displaced people could lose their lives as a result. The ADFL leadership is not known to have prevented or even condemned these acts by its combatants.
For many months the Rwandese Government has repeatedly blamed the UNHCR for delaying the repatriation and held the agency responsible for the death in May 1997 of 92 refugees crammed on a train. The government appeared not to be concerned that when the deaths occurred the ADFL had loaded large numbers of refugees, many of them too weak to travel, on the train, without informing the UNHCR and other humanitarian organizations to take measures to ensure the refugees' safety.
After the ADFL came to power, it became more apparent that actions against Rwandese refugees were being coordinated between the Rwandese and Congolese authorities. For example, when on 9 September 1997 the UNHCR suspended its activities for Rwandese refugees in the DRC, both the Rwandese and Congolese governments condemned the work of the agency. The UNHCR was protesting against the DRC Government's obstruction of its work, including the forcible return on 4 September of about 800 Rwandese and Burundian refugees in Kisangani to Rwanda. Although the DRC Government announced on 3 October that it had closed its border with Rwanda, in practice it was a closure to prevent Rwandese refugees from entering the DRC. On the same day, the government ordered UNHCR workers to stop operations in North-Kivu and forcibly returned at least 830 refugees, 730 of them women and children, to the Rwandese border town of Gisenyi. UNHCR workers were not allowed to interview the refugees, many of whom had recently arrived in the DRC after leaving the country in early 1997. Two days later, the DRC Government announced that it had expelled 4,000 Rwandese refugees. More than 100 people were killed in and around Gisenyi when armed insurgents attacked the area on 8 and 14 October." (54)
When the humanitarian organizations discovered how they were being used in spite of themselves by the "facilitators" to play a pivotal role in this macabre strategy of extermination, some decided to suspend humanitarian aid. Human Rights Watch and the Fédération internationale des ligues des droits de l'homme describe as follows the confusion and dismay of these organizations upon learning how badly they had been manipulated by the infamous "facilitators":
"The Wall Street Journal reported that the ADFL soldiers in Mbandaka had said that more important than fighting Mobutu' soldiers was the elimination of refugees. To the contrary, non-Tutsi ADFL troops told Congolese in areas where massacres had taken place that the killings of refugees was not their business; one Katangese general stated in a private conversation that he had nothing to do with refugees affairs.
Other humanitarian organizations operating in eastern and central Congo expressed their frustration from having been manipulated by the ADFL in what they described as "bait and kill" operations. While attempting to locate and set up assistance stations for refugees dispersed in the forest, agencies claimed that they were required to be accompanied by an ADFL " facilitator". According to their reports, after refugees had been located and put in groups to facilitate humanitarian assistance, access would be cut off to the refugees by ADFL military. Typically, after several days of no assistance, humanitarian groups would find the refugees had disappeared or been dispersed. Humanitarian agencies claimed that the "facilitators" would inform ADFL military of concentrations of refugees to expedite their killings.
At least one agency ceased providing services to refugees in certain areas in protest of this practice by the ADFL, estimating that fewer refugees would die from a lack of humanitarian assistance than would die if their work continued to serve as an orientation tool for ADFL military seeking out refugees." (55)
II.vii. The Crime of Arbitrary Arrest, Illegal Detention and Kidnapping
Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by UN General Assembly Resolution 217A(III) of December 10, 1948, states that, "no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile."
Arbitrary arrest means any arrest made in violation of the law, and illegal detention means any that occurs as a result of an arbitrary arrest. Detention means illegally preventing a person from circulating, wherever that person may be found. International law holds that such acts constitute crimes against humanity where they are widespread or systematic, concern a large number of victims and take place over a certain period.
And indeed, the arbitrary arrests committed in Zaire during 1996-1997, whether by the Mobutist authorities, the ADFL, the RPA or any other party to the conflict, were massive, widespread and constant, and there were cases of entire families being held illegally. These acts almost always preceded the murders, tortures, mutilations and other cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.
The international legal instruments are unanimous in holding that the perpetrators of such acts are responsible for crimes against humanity. Thus, the jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and earlier, that of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia as well as the International Military Tribunals of Nuremberg and Tokyo categorize as crimes against humanity certain grave acts of violence committed on a large scale by individuals, whether agents of the State or others, against other individuals on national, political, ideological, racial, ethnic or religious grounds.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, object of the resolution 2200 A (XXI) of the General Assembly of 16 December 1966 states in its article 9 that "everyone has right to liberty and security of person. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention. No one shall be deprived of his liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedure as are established by law." (56)
And indeed, there is abundant evidence to show the constant, massive and widespread nature of this violation in Congo-Zaire in 1996 and 1997.
For example, Amnesty International, in its November 1996 report, notes that hundreds of people were arrested and detained in South Kivu, particularly at Uvira, and that more than 80% of these people were illegally detained civilians. (57)
Similarly, in its February 19, 1997 report, pp. 6-7, it states that the Zairian authorities detained Zairian Tutsis, Rwandese refugees, journalists and human rights activists illegally, without the slightest respect for the rules governing preventive detention, and that most of these detainees died without ever being brought to trial. (58)
A wealth of other examples of arbitrary arrest and detention are given by Amnesty International in its report of December 3, 1997, pp. 25-26. These illegal arrests were the work of the ADFL authorities between May and July 1997 at Kinshasa, when the war was already over. (59)
The Collectif des Associations de droits de l'homme (CADDHOM) produced a report in July 1997, p. 9, that denounces innumerable arbitrary arrests in South Kivu. In another report covering the period from July-December 1997, CADDHOM notes a startling number of arbitrary and illegal arrests in South-Kivu (pp. 10-12). (60)
A number of other organizations, such as Groupe justice et libération, in its activity report for January-May 1997, pp. 12-13, confirm the massive, constant and widespread occurrence of these illegal arrests and hence their status as crimes against humanity. (61)
Furthermore, informative testimony gathered by Amnesty International about the arrests, arbitrary detentions and torture practiced by the ADFL on a widespread and systematic basis can be found in its reports. (62)
Summary
II.viii. The crime of forced expulsion of the Tutsis
Zairian Tutsis were hounded out of Zaire into Rwanda in violation of Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in a perfectly wanton and discriminatory fashion. Article 9 states that "no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile." Nonetheless, thousands of people were targeted on ethnic grounds, with no guarantees of a fair expulsion procedure.
This crime, too, is defined and sanctioned by international jurisprudence as a crime against humanity as defined above. Moreover, it constitutes unacceptable collective punishment that is expressly disallowed by Article 33 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of August 12, 1949.
And in fact, this persecution of Tutsis was indisputably the result of a campaign of incitement of racial and ethnic hatred tolerated by the Zairian authorities. In particular, the deputy governor of South Kivu, Mr. Lawabanji, publicly called for the Banyamulenge, a population of the Tutsi race, to leave Zaire. Similarly, many of them were forced to leave Kinshasa following attacks against their person and property, as attested by the Amnesty International report of November 8, 1996, p.6.
The own from the Special Rapporteur gives extremely eloquent details on the violations by the FAZ and the Zairan authorities against the Tutsi particularly.:
"Acts committed by FAZ or the Zairian authorities
Killings and, in particular, all forms of homicide, unknown during peacetime, have been particularly common during the conflict. The most frequent victims have been individuals suspected of being members of, or merely of sympathizing with, the Banyamulenge. In Bukavu, the most serious accusations have been directed at SARM, but there have also been numerous complaints against GC and DSP, which were sent to the region to restore order, with functions similar to those of ZCSO in the refugee camps. There have been many reports of summary executions and, generally speaking, a veritable manhunt for anyone with a Batutsi ancestor or relative, living with, or suspected of having contacts with the Batutsi; has been unleashed throughout the country. In late October, Rwandan students in Kinshasa were persecuted and their property was stolen to prevent them returning to their country. Many public demonstrations, organized to protest the presence of Rwandans, have led to the arrest of Tutsi and the stoning of their houses and other buildings. The above-mentioned Deputy Governor of Southern Kivu, Lwasi Ngabo Lwanbanji, was an extreme case, but not the only one. In Kinshasa, Goma and Bukavu, the Special Rapporteur heard numerous reports of this type of intimidation. Many witnesses stated that FAZ preferred the easy task of seeking out Tutsi civilians in the towns to that of serving on the battlefield. Cases of killings include the following: (a) Southern Kivu, September: some 40 civilians, including children, were executed in Kamanyola. Among them were Faustin Sebugorore and Rukenerwa Ndatabaye; (b) Lueba, September: some 100 Zairian Tutsi, including women and children, were murdered, reportedly with the help of Zairian civilians of the Bembe ethnic group; (c) Lutabura, 30 September: FAZ, with the help of civilians, killed some 100 Banyamulengue as a reprisal for the massacre of 19 September in Epombo; (d) Lusenda, late October: FAZ, with the help of Babembe combatants, murdered Lenge Rugaza Kabili, Chief of the Bavira, for having protected Batutsi; (e) Bunia, 1 and 2 December: FAZ soldiers murdered Nandi and Pakistani Hindu shopkeepers." (63)
Summary
II.ix. Forced Transfer of Hutus to Rwanda
The stated objective of the Kigali authorities in attacking the refugee camps was to force the refugees to return to Rwanda. This was indisputably a grave violation of the laws and customs applicable to refugees, and a bona fide deportation operation. Over 700,000 persons were repatriated against their will to Rwanda, all sources being in agreement on this figure.
International law, as codified by Article 33 of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees adopted July 28, 1951 by the Conference of Plenipoten-
tiaries on the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons, states that "no contracting state shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinions ...". (64)
Nonetheless, the Hutu refugees forced to return to Rwanda had left that country precisely due to the threats against their life and liberty. As it turned out, various reports subsequent to the forced return of the refugees have confirmed that their fears were justified.
Thus, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a report from January 6, 1997, states that of a total of about 1,000,000 people forced to return from Zaire and Tanzania, at least 5,460 were immediately placed in detention, particularly in the prefectures of Kibungo and Mutara:
"Between 14 December and 31 December, an estimated 473,082 Rwandese returnees arrived in Kibungo prefecture, southeastern Rwanda, from former refugee camps in Ngara and Karagwe, northeastern Tanzania. The majority of the returnees were originally from Kibungo and Mutara Prefectures and arrived by foot to Rwanda via the Rusumo border crossing in southeastern Kibungo Prefecture. The arrival of the returnees from Tanzania combined with the 555,000 returnees from Zaïre raised the total number of returnees arriving in Rwanda since mid-November to just over one million." (65)
In another report from January 28, 1997, covering the period from November 15, 1996 to January 15, 1997, the High Commissioner for Human Rights denounced the murders and abusive arrests of refugees returning to their country:
"Based on information available to HRFOR through mid-January, more than 2,140 additional returnees were arrested during the first weeks of January, bringing the total of recent returnees in detention to over 7,600. These figures include, for example, 490 new arrests to date during January in Murambi Commune, Mutara Prefecture, where 1,048 of the 1,050 detainees are recent returnees. The vast majority of these arrests during the two-month period through 15 January were carried out by non-competent authorities lacking proper warrants and have greatly exacerbated problems of overcrowding in certain local detention centres.
Recent Killings and Other Attacks against or Involving Returnees
Between 15 and 30 November, HRFOR noted two fatal attacks against recent returnees from Zaire: the 18 November killing of a returnee in Ruhengeri Prefecture by three soldiers of the Rwandese Patriotic Army (RPA), and the fatal beating on 27 November of a returnee accused of killing a genocide survivor in Gisenyi Prefecture.
In December, there were 15 reported killings of recent returnees, including five in Kibungo, three in Kigali Ville, two in Kibuye, and one each in Byumba, Cyangugu, Gikongoro, Gitarama, and Kigali Rural Prefectures. RPA soldiers or other agents of the state were the perpetrators in at least 13 of these killings, including those of two detainees killed during alleged escape attempts and three deaths resulting from ill-treatment, all in Kibungo Prefecture. In another incident, a recent returnee from Zaire, accused of killing a genocide survivor and three other persons on 11 December, was summarily executed by RPA soldiers at a public meeting on 21 December organised by senior military officers and civilian authorities in Gikongoro Prefecture.
HRFOR received reports of a marked increase in killings of recent returnees during the first half of January. Based on information available to HRFOR as of 15 January, at least 43 recent returnees were killed in incidents during the first two weeks of the month. In an incident resulting in the highest numbers of fatalities to date, 31 recent returnees from Tanzania were reportedly killed on 9 January by members of the local population in Kigina Sector, Rusumo Commune. According to information received, a number of the victims were informed by a nyumbakumi and other local residents that they should go to a certain place where food was to be distributed. At least 31 returnees were then beaten to death, killed with machetes, or hanged. Local authorities have opened investigations, and five persons have reportedly been arrested and eight others are being sought in connection with the incident. The conseiller of the sector has been removed from his post for failing to take measures to prevent the incident. HRFOR is continuing its investigations.
Between mid-November and mid-January, HRFOR also received reports of other attacks and cases of ill-treatment against recent returnees, particularly involving returnees from Tanzania in Kibungo prefecture. On 23 December, for example, approximately 300 returnees in Rusumo Commune, Kibungo Prefecture, were rounded up by RPA soldiers and members of the local population and forced to attend a meeting in which they were told to confess to crimes committed during the genocide. On the way to this meeting, 20 returnees were severely beaten, including one man who was left gravely wounded on the road and who has not been seen since. HRFOR is not aware of any arrests of the soldiers and civilians allegedly responsible for the ill-treatment. On 15 January, to cite another example, human rights field officers in Cyangugu Prefecture witnessed the beating of eight arriving returnees by local residents who accused them of crimes during the genocide. Local officials intervened and detained the eight returnees themselves." (66)
In October 1997, Amnesty International found it necessary to publish an open letter to the governments of the Great Lakes region to draw their attention to the murders and other human rights violations of which the refugees returning from Zaire to both Rwanda and Burundi were being made victim. (67)
In October 1997, the Kabila government, in violation of the prohibition on expulsion of people fleeing persecution, expatriated Rwandese Hutus from Kisangani to Kigali by chartered aircraft.
By all accounts, the Congolese government systematically engaged in the forced expulsion of Rwandese refugees. All reports clearly demonstrate that there is no cause for rejoicing at the return of the refugees to Rwanda and Burundi under conditions that do not guarantee their safety and basic rights.
Summary
II.x. Persecution on Political, Racial or Religious Grounds
After murder and arbitrary arrest, this was the most widespread crime, directed, either alternatively or simultaneously, against Tutsis, Hutus, intellectuals and opinion leaders, as well as against moderates on all sides.
The persecution violated Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of December 10, 1948, which states that "no one should be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks". It is, a fortiori, contrary to Articles 2, 3, 4, 5 and 9 of the Declaration as well.
Also it is contrary to article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which states that "everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference."
The United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination further states that "discrimination between human beings on the ground of race, colour or ethnic origin is an offence to human dignity and shall be condemned as a denial of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, as a violation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms, ... a fact capable of disturbing peace and security among peoples."
Yet this kind of persecution was constant, massive and widespread in Zaire during 1996-97, and took the form of arbitrary arrests, threats, torture, expulsion, slanderous denunciations and murders, as attested to by all the reports analyzed.
Summary
II.xi. Incitement of Racial, Ethnic or Political Hatred
This is contrary to the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination proclaimed by the UN General Assembly on November 20, 1963, which sets forth that "any doctrine of racial differentiation or superiority is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous, and that there is no justification for racial discrimination either in theory nor in practice."
Moreover, Article 2 of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination prescribes the following obligations:
"A.1 No State, institution, group or individual shall make any discrimination whatsoever in matters of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the treatment of persons, groups or institutions on the ground of race, colour or ethnic origin.
A.2 No State shall encourage, advocate or lend its support, through police action or otherwise to any discrimination based on race, colour or ethnic origin by any group, institution or individual."
Incitement of racial and ethnic hatred was a constant element in Zaire during 1996-97. It should be recalled that the Hutu-Tutsi conflict was transposed to Zaire after 1994 following the genocide in Rwanda, and was fuelled by the war and the intense hate propaganda.
Incitement of racial, ethnic or political hatred constitutes a crime, and when practiced on this scale, a full-fledged crime against humanity. Several reports coincide in finding that incitement to racial and ethnic hatred was a constant factor during the 1996-97 period in Zaire. It constituted an effective instrument used to identify, demonize, mistreat and finally eliminate human beings.
"As the conflict expanded, incitement to hatred became more frequent, as reported in a communiqué of 26 October which stated: ‘The Special Rapporteur is particularly concerned by incitement to hatred on the part of Rwandan political leaders at the highest level and by the replies of the military and regional authorities of Zaire. He welcomes the spirit of moderation displayed by Mr.Kengo wa Dondo, Prime Minister of Zaire,' referring to the dismissal of the Deputy Governor of Southern Kivu, Lwasi Ngabo Lwanbanji, because of his public statements." (68)
These calls for ethnic and political violence were also reported and denounced by Amnesty International, particularly in its November 1996 report, pp. 14-15. (69)
Summary
II.xii. Violation of Property Rights
Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 states that "Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property..."
Even in wartime, international humanitarian law considers the following acts to be criminal: destruction or seizure of enemy property, except where this destruction is urgently required by the necessities of war; pillaging of a town or village.
More than any other, the Zairian army systematically pillaged all sites or locations during clashes or when retreating, as appears from the reports of the different organizations. (70)
To a lesser degree, the ADFL also appropriated the property of people, who in some cases were not necessarily close to the former regime.
Furthermore, this pillage barely diminished with the taking of power by the ADFL power.
Summary
II.xiii. Recruitment and Enrollment of Children and Minors
The recruitment and enrollment of children and minors is forbidden by the various international legal instruments such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989, Article 38, the Geneva Conventions, the Statute of the Nuremberg IMT confirmed by resolutions 3(I), and 95(I) of the UN General Assembly dated February 13, 1946 and December 11, 1946, because they constitute war crimes.
Starting in October 1997, the ADFL rebel forces systematically enrolled children, who were called "Kadogo," particularly in the North and South Kivu. They had received cursory training and served mainly as a buffer for the more experienced ADFL troops. This enrollment was even made public by various television networks such as the BBC, CNN, TF1 and other world networks. Finally, nearly 300 of these children have just died of illness in the Kapalata camp, where they were to undertake a demobilization program.
The Garretón report of October 12, 1997, p. 25, notes the recruitment and enrollment of children and minors by the ADFL. But this report is entirely superfluous, since network television showed the whole world that the ADFL troops consisted largely of children aged 12-16.
Notes
4. London Agreement of August 8, 1945, 59 Stat. 1544, E.A.S. No. 472, as reproduced in Henry Steiner and Philip Alston, International Human Rights in Context (Oxford: University Press, 1996) at 100-1. - Return
5. See Steiner and Alston, supra, note 5 at p.109. - Return
6. For a discussion of the manner in which the definition of international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity, have developed in customary international law, see: Joseph Rikhof, "Crimes Against Humanity, Customary International Law and the International Tribunals for Bosnia and Rwanda" (1996) 6 N.J.C.L. 233-268. - Return
7. Paragraph 37 of the "Report of the Secretary General Pursuant to Paragraph 2 of Security Council Resolution 808" (UN Doc. S/25704, 3 May 1993) to which is annexed the Statute for the International Tribunal. - Return
8. Yoram Dinstein, «International Criminal Law» 5 Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 55 (1975), as cited in Steiner and Alston, supra, note 5 at 1029.
- Return
9. Ibid. - Return
10. See Amnesty International, «The Quest for International Justice: Time for a Permanent International Criminal Court» (July 1995), IOR 40/04/95, at p. 6.
- Return
11. On the concept of crimes against humanity, see E. Zoller, «La définition des crimes contre l'humanité», E.D.I., 1993, pp. 543-568. - Return
12. For a useful commentary on the definition of crimes in the ICC statute, see: Amnestry International, "The Quest for International Justice: Defining the Crimes and Defences for the International Criminal Court," (February 1997), IOR 40/06/97. - Return
13. United Nations Security Council: Resolution 955 (1994) of November 8 1994, Annex: Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. - Return
14. Amnesty International: «Appeal for the Protection of Human Rights in the Crisis of Eastern Zaïre», November 8, 1996, page 6. - Return
15. Amnesty International: «Mémorandum adressé au gouvernement de la République démocratique du Congo», décembre 1997, p.15. - Return
16. Human Rights Watch and FIDH: «Ce que Kabila dissimule: Massacres de civils et impunité au Congo», October 1997, pp. 16-32. - Return
17. Ibid., p. 25. - Return
18. Ibid, p. 26. - Return
19. Ibid., p. 27. - Return
20. Ibid., p. 28. - Return
21. Ibid., p. 31. - Return
22. Ibid., p. 32. - Return
23. Palermo-Bukavu Solidarity Committee, «La violation des droits de l'homme dans les territoires contrôlés par l'AFDL», pp. 4-5. - Return
24. Amnesty International: "Deadly Alliances in Congolese Forests," pp. 13-18. - Return
25. See also CADDHOM, Press Release of May 7 1998.
- Return
26. Palerme-Bukavu Solidary Committee, op. cit pp. 5-6. - Return
27. Amnesty International: "Deadly Alliances in Congolese Forests," p.30. - Return
28. AZADHO: "Droits de l'homme au Nord Kivu, une année d'adminstration AFDL: Plus ça change plus c'est la même chose. Rapport sur l'État des droits de l'Homme au Nord Kivu après une année d'administration par l'AFDL" Kinshasa November 1997, pp. 8-11. - Return
29. Garretón report, E/CN.4/1997/6/Add.2, pp. 6-9. - Return
30. In particular, these reports are the following:
1) Amnesty International, November 8, 1996, p. 6;
2) Amnesty International, November 8, 1996, pp. 7-10;
3) Amnesty International, February 16, 1997, pp. 5-6;
4) Palermo-Bukavu Solidarity Committee, pp. 5-7;
5) Amnesty International: Memorandum to the Congolese Government, pp. 14-15;
6) Human Rights Watch and FIDH, pp. 16-30;
7) AZADHO Report, March 1997, pp. 1-4;
8) AZADHO Report, November 1997, pp. 10, 11;
9) CADDHOM, July-December 1997, pp. 7, 8, 9, 10;
10) CADDHOM, July 1997, pp. 3, 4;
11) Garreton Report, April 2, 1997, pp. 6-10;
12) Garreton Report, October 17, 1997;
13) Report of Father Herman Van D., September 15, 1997, pp. 5-11;
14) Report of the joint mission of the three special rapporteurs, July 2, 1997;
15) Report of Physicians for Human Rights;
16) Report of Doctors Without Borders. - Return
31. In United Nations, Compilation of International instruments, 1988, p. 213 . - Return
32. Proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights, in United Nations, Compilation of International Instruments, p. 210. - Return
33. Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Conditions of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Force in the Field of August 12 1949 in The Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, International Committee for the Red Cross pp.44-45. - Return
34. Geneva Conventions, op. cit., p. 26. - Return
35. Report by Roberto Garretón , April 2, 1997, p. 11; Amnesty International, December 1997, p.17; 2nd Garretón Report, pp. 41-43; AZADHO Report, November 1997, p. 18-19; Human Rights Watch, December 1997, p. 20. - Return
36. AZADHO, November 1997, op. cit., pp. 17-18. - Return
37. Amnesty International, "Deadly Alliances in Congolese Forests," pp. 25-27. - Return
38. According to CADDHOM, professor Wasso Mbilizi is still alive, Press Release of May 7 1998. - Return
39. UN Commission on Human Rights: "Situation of Human Rights in the Republic of Zaïre," Report of the Special Rapporteur Roberto Garretón, E/CN.4/1997/6, pp. 41- 43. - Return
40. Declaration on the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances, Instruments internationaux Nations unies, 1994 vol. I doc. 53 pp. 407-414. - Return
41. Amnesty International, "Deadly Alliances in Congolese Forests," December 1997 pp. 17-19. - Return
42. AZADHO, November 1997, pp. 17-18, "Disparitions forcées et involontaires." On the question of forced disappearances in Kivu, see also the report of the Palerme-Bukavu Solidarity Committee, op. cit. pp. 5-6. - Return
43. Human Rights Watch / Africa, Human Rights Watch / Women's Rights Project, FIDH, «Shattered Lives, Sexual Violence during the Rwandan Genocide and its Aftermath», New York, September 1996. - Return
44. 1) Amnesty International, December 3 1997, pp. 23-24; 2) Amnesty International, February 19, 1997, p. 4 (important); 3) Report of Father Herman, p. 6; 4) AZADHO report, November 1997, p. 19. - Return
45. Amnesty International, «Zaïre: Killings and other Human Rights Violations by Security Forces», pp. 3-4. - Return
46. Amnesty International, "Deadly Alliances in Congolese Forests," p. 29. - Return
47. Ibid, p. 33. - Return
48. AZADHO, Novembre 1997 op. cit. p. 19. - Return
49. Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in the Armed Forces in the Field of August 19, 1949 op. cit. - Return
50. UN Security Council: Résolution no 808 (1993), Annex: Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, article 2. Libera d). - Return
51. On this subject, see:
1) Amnesty International report, February 16, 1996, p 5;
2) FIDH and HRW report, pp. 16-17;
3) CADDHOM report, July-December, pp. 11-14;
4) AZADHO report, November 1997, p. 9, para. 3;
5) AZADHO report, p. 10, para. e);
6) Father Herman's report, p. 5. - Return
52. Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons During Time of War of August 19, 1949 in Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949 op. cit. - Return
53. UN Commission for Human Rights, "Human Rights Situation in Zaïre," by Special Rapporteur M. R. Garretón, 2.4.97, E/CN.4/1997/6/Add.2 p.12. - Return
54. Amnesty International, "Deadly Alliances in Congolese Forests," pp. 42-43. - Return
55. HRW et FIDH/DRC, "What Kabila is hiding, Civilian killings and Impunity in Congo," p. 21. - Return
56. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of December 16 1966 in Human Rights: A Compilation of International Instruments. - Return
57. Amnesty International: op. cit., November 29, 1997. - Return
58. Amnesty International: op. cit., February 19, 1997. - Return
59. Amnesty International: op. cit. pp. 25-26. - Return
60. CADDHOM, «Rapport d'activités janvier à juin 1997» and «Rapport d'activités juillet-décembre 1997» op.cit. - Return
61. Groupe justice et libération: «Rapport des activités janvier-mai 1997», Kisangani, 1997, pp. 12-13. - Return
62. Amnesty International: "Deadly Alliances in the Congolese Forests," pp. 34-47.
- Return
63. UN Commission for Human Rights, "Situation of Human Rights in the Republic of Zaïre," Report of the Special Rapporteur M. R. Garretón, op. cit. pp.41-42. - Return
64. Convention on the Status of Refugees of July 28, 1951 in Human Rights: A Compilation of International Instruments, op. cit. - Return
65. High Commissioner for Human Rights Office in Rwanda, "Update on the Arrival and Reception of Rwandese Returnees from Tanzania during December 1996," January 6, 1997, pp. 1-3. - Return
66. High Commissioner for Human Rights Office in Rwanda,"Human Rights Incidents Involving Recent Returnees from Zaïre and Tanzania," January 28, 1997, pp. 1-4. - Return
67. Amnesty International: «Great Lakes Region, Open Letter to Governments Hosting Refugees from Burundi, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo: A Call for the Safety and Dignity of Refugees», pp. 1-5. - Return
68. UN Commission for Human Rights , "Situation of Human rights in the Republic of Zaïre," Report of the Special Rapporteur M. R. Garretón, January 28, 1997, op. cit. p. 38, para. 181. - Return
69. Amnesty International, op. cit., November 1996, pp. 14-15. - Return
70. Amnesty International report of February 19, 1997, pp. 3-4; the CADDHOM report of July 1997, pp. 12 and 22; the report of Mr. Garretón of April 2, 1997; the AZADHO report of November 1997, p.13; the report of Mr. Garretón of October 17, 1997, pp. 22-23; the AZADHO report, urgent appeal no. 3/97, pp. 2-4; the report of Groupe justice et libération, January-May 1997, pp. 10-14, 19-20, 25-26. - Return
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